


show me a garden that's bursting into life

by JillianEmily



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Based on Grey's Anatomy, Drama, F/M, Humor, Inspired by Grey's Anatomy, Percabeth Drama, Romance, Surgeons, Surgical Residency
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 49,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23234896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JillianEmily/pseuds/JillianEmily
Summary: Annabeth's starting a surgical residency and it's the first day of intern year. As though Annabeth's not confused enough as it is, it turns out that the person she had spent the night with just might end up being her boss. Things are awful and insane these next forty-eight hours, but everything might not be so bad in the end. Surgeon AU, Grey's Anatomy AU
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Jason Grace/Piper McLean
Comments: 14
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

Annabeth woke up with a start, being pulled out of a dream that was already beginning to slip from her mind.

As she lay on the couch, she tried to remember where she was. Her surroundings seemed foreign to her at first and she couldn’t recognize anything other than the painful pounding that was going on in her head.

Annabeth lifted her head up from off her brown throw pillow, and everything from the previous night came rushing back to her mind all at once.

Her eyes landed on the toned body that lay passed out on her floor, his bare ass barely covered by the thin wool blanket haphazardly thrown over him.

Annabeth, without even bothering to drag herself to a sitting position, reached over the edge of the couch blindly for the blanket.

A few seconds of slapping around the cold floor later, Annabeth’s fist grasped onto the woven blanket and pulled it off of him and over her bare body, holding it closed over her shoulders.

She stood up slowly, her whole body aching and legs wobbly, and grabbed the pillow from behind her on the couch. She approached the black-haired guy who was still in a deep sleep, admiring his peaceful face as he slept, before dropping the pillow onto his ass, quite ungently.

He woke up with a slight jump, letting out a soft _hmph_. Annabeth looked around the room for he clothes that had been thrown carelessly about the room the night before. Her face flushed as she recalls last night’s events and looks for her bra.

Annabeth was pulled out of her search when the guy groaned as he shifted his body to pick something up.

“This is, uh…” he said, lifting her black lacy bra to her line of sight by his index finger.

Annabeth flinched. “Humiliating. Incredibly humiliating.” She snatched it from his hands, turning around and calling out over her shoulder, “You need to go.”

That got the man’s attention. “Or we could both stay here and carry last night’s events over to today.”

Annabeth shook her head at his innuendo. “Seriously, you need to go.”

The man dropped his head back onto the floor, banging his head against the hardwood in a what sounded very painful way. “Why?” he groaned, his words muffled.

Annabeth continued moving around the room. “Today’s my first day of work, and I’m running late. I’d really rather not be late on my first day of work.”

He didn’t move. “So, this is your place?” he asked.

“No. Well, yes.” He lifted his head to glance at her in confusion. “It was my mother’s,” she clarified.

He brought himself to a sitting position. “I’m sorry.”

She stopped in her tracks. “What for?”

“Your mother. She passed, didn’t she?”

Annabeth shook her mussed hair out of her face. “No. I just moved here from Boston, so I’m just going to be staying here until I find another place.”

“Ah.” The guy stood up from the floor, brandishing his you-know-what in all its glory, and Annabeth looked away as though she hadn’t seen it last night, or hell, used it last night.

“So,” the man began as he looked around the floor. “Where are you working?” He turned around to pull his boxers and pants back on.

Annabeth ignored his question, turning around and making her way towards the carpeted stairs. “Let’s not do this.”

“What?”

“Let’s not be friendly, or pretend we actually know each other and care for each other’s well beings,” she clarified.

“Oh.” He grabbed his dress shirt from where it landed on a nearby table.

“I’m going to go upstairs and take a shower. By the time I’m done, you’re not going to be here anymore,” she said, stressing the part of him not being there anymore. “So, goodbye, uh…”

A second passed between them.

“Percy,” he said with a smile, walking forwards to shake her hand while holding his plain shirt with his free hand.

“Annabeth,” she exchanged, accepting his greeting gracefully. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Percy.”

Percy pulled his shirt over his head. “It was nice to meet you, too, Annabeth.”

She nodded, a humored gleam in her eyes. “ _Goodbye,_ Percy,” she said, lifting her finger to point at him sternly.

Annabeth took one last look at him before slowly taking the steps leading to the second floor.

Once Annabeth was out of Percy’s sight, she leaned against the unpainted wall, waiting and listening for the sound of her front door shutting, signaling that her nighttime guest had finally left her home.

At the sound of the front door slamming shut, Annabeth gave a sign of relief, and made her way to the bathroom where she’d take a steaming shower and try to forget how the start of her first day at a new job had just went.

* * *

Annabeth cursed and grabbed her faux leather bag, slamming the door of her cheap car shut and practically running through the parking lot towards the glass front doors of the hospital. _Why did she have to wear jeans?_

Annabeth was beginning her intern year of a surgical residency today, and she was already running impossibly late. Annabeth had graduated top of her class from her high school over in New York. She got an undergraduate degree at Stanford University and then graduated from medical school at Dartmouth. She worked so hard to get to where she is, and she is _not_ going to ruin that by being late.

She was doing her residency at Seattle Grace Hospital, the place where her mother, Athena Chase, had become a world class surgeon. That was another thing. Her mother had told Annabeth that she didn’t have what it took to become a surgeon. She had tried to talk Annabeth out of medical school, which had somewhat destroyed their relationship beyond repair. Her mother was a legend in the surgical community and Annabeth was already incredibly nervous about having to live up to that without being late for her first day, so yeah, she was panicking.

Annabeth ran through the front doors, barely glancing around before storming up to the front desk, huffing angrily.

“Do you know where the interns are supposed to meet?” she asked, her chest rising and falling harshly.

The woman looked at Annabeth in something that looked a lot like disgust.

“Second floor, East Wing,” the woman told her, lifting a finger to point in the general direction. “They’ve started the tour by now.”

Without even so much as muttering a thanks, Annabeth took off sprinting towards the stairs. She didn’t even bother with the elevator. She took the steps two at a time, turning to the left at the top and making her way down the carpeted hall.

Annabeth stayed alert, looking for the familiar group of people that she had met at the resident mixer. The end of the hall was in sight and a feeling of dread filled her, until she just barely saw a few people turning a corner out of her peripheral vision.

Deciding to take a chance since no one else was in sight, Annabeth followed the people, turning the same corner and saving herself from an actual heart attack when she saw a medium sized group of people she knew would be her surgical resident coworkers.

Annabeth slowed her steps, treading the floor lightly as to not alert the Chief of Surgery that was giving the tour of her late coming. She joined the back of the group, tuning in to what the guide was saying.

The Chief of Surgery turned around just as Annabeth made her way up, locking eyes with her as though reading her soul. She read his I.D. clipped onto his pristine white coat. _Dr. Phoebus Apollo._

“A month ago, you were in medical school. You were training to become doctors. Now, you _are_ the doctors.”

“The seven years that you’re residents will test you beyond what you can imagine. It’s not going to be easy, I can promise you that. Some of you will switch to easier specialties, and some will quit altogether. Those of you that intend to make it will have to be on your top game every single second that you’re inside the walls of this hospital.”

The Chief stopped in front of two doors and looked around at the group that had been stunned into silence. “Any questions?”

When everyone shook their heads and murmured under their breath, the Chief continued.

“Well, then.” He opened the doors behind him.

“Welcome to the next seven years of your life.”

* * *

**0 Hours**

* * *

Annabeth stood in the locker room designated for the interns. She had already changed into her light blue scrubs and put on her white lab coat.

Annabeth roped her stethoscope around her neck as she looked around the room filled mainly of men, lifting her low ponytail over the cord. “There’s only six women out of twenty surgical residents,” she said to her neighbor.

Her neighbor glanced Annabeth’s way. “I know,” she began in annoyance. “Apparently, one’s a model. That’s really going to help us gain respect when the men are already dragging their overinflated egos around the entire goddamn hospital.”

Annabeth stood up and shoved her bag into her locker. A higher year resident began listing names, none of which were Annabeth’s.

“So,” began the girl next to her, extending her hand. “I’m Piper McLean.”

Annabeth turned around, pulling her lower lip between her teeth and accepting the handshake. “Annabeth Chase.”

Piper yelped and pulled her hand back. “Chase? As in _Athena Chase_?”

Annabeth shut her locker aggressively. “That’s my mother.”

“Oh, wow. Aren’t you lucky?” Piper teased, putting a hand on her hip.

“Not really,” Annabeth replied flatly, sitting down on a bench to tie her shoe that had come undone.

When Annabeth didn’t say anything beyond that, Piper carried the conversation on.

“Who’d you get assigned to? I got La Rue.”

“The Nazi? Me too.”

Piper sat next to Annabeth and elbowed her in the arm gently. “At least we have each other, amirite?”

Before Annabeth could respond, another person interrupted.

“I’m Leo Valdez,” he said, grabbing his stethoscope and closing his own locker. “We met at the mixer,” he spoke to Annabeth.

Annabeth nodded, exchanging an amused glance with Piper.

“You had on a black dress, with these strappy sandals, and your hair was…”

Leo stopped as he saw Annabeth’s face and humored eyes. “And now you think I’m gay. I’m not gay!”

Annabeth smiled politely and stood up as Leo stammered over his words.

The guy calling names walked back into the locker room, calling out a few more names.

“Chase, McLean, Valdez, Beauregard!”

Annabeth stifled a laugh as Leo insisted that he wasn’t gay again, and walked out of the room alongside Piper.

“La Rue,” Piper said to the guy, who pointed wordlessly down the hall to a lady that was surprisingly short and a tad bit buff.

“ _That’s_ the Nazi?” Annabeth questioned.

“I was expecting someone with a penis,” Piper said.

Annabeth looked at her.

“What?” Piper defended.

“It would’ve been easier to say you expected a man,” Leo said.

“Okay, but is that or is that not the same thing?”

Annabeth chuckled. “I just expected the Nazi to look like, well, a Nazi.”

“What does a Nazi even look like?” Piper asked.

Annabeth was stumped. “I’m not sure, actually.”

Another girl, hair and perfectly put together, accosted the group. “Maybe she’s actually really nice. Maybe she’s not a Nazi at all and they’re actually just jealous.” The girl beamed at the group of interns, before flouncing away in front of them.

“Found the model,” Piper muttered to Annabeth under her breath, succeeding in making Annabeth choke down a laugh and Silena turn around with a death glace made special with love for Piper.

“Hi,” the girl said, extending her hand towards La Rue. “I’m Silena Beauregard.”

La Rue stared at Beauregard’s hand like it had been coughed on by someone with the Bubonic Plague. “I’ve got five rules. Memorize them. Number one: don’t bother sucking up. I already hate you and that’s not going to be changing anytime soon.”

La Rue began walking. “Here are trauma protocols, phone lists, and pagers. You get a page, you answer at a run. A run! That’s rule number two.”

“Your first shift starts now, and it will last for the next forty-eight hours.” La Rue began walking towards a door and opened it. “It’s going to be long and you will be tired. These are the on-call rooms. Attendings hog the rooms so you’re going to have to sleep when you can, where you can.”

“Rule number three: If I am sleeping, you do not wake me unless your patient is physically dying. That being said, rule number four. That patient better not be dead by the time I get there. If they are, not only will you have killed a person, but you will have woken me up for no good reason. Are we clear?”

Annabeth raised her hand hesitantly. “You said five. That was only four.”

La Rue looked at Annabeth in disgust. Her pager went off. “Rule number five: when I move, you move.”

La Rue began running off in what seemed like a random direction, leaving the four interns to scramble after her.

Annabeth ran alongside Piper, looking at her and exchanging glances of _what did we get ourselves into?_ La Rue ran around a corner, reaching an elevator and punching the up button so hard that it’s surprising the plastic button didn’t split into two.

Annabeth and the other interns ran into the elevator, where La Rue pressed the button bringing them up to the helicopter pad. Beauregard was rolled a gurney, to which she rolled after La Rue and towards the medivac that was currently landing.

The helicopter was bright red against the dull Seattle sky as it landed, the chopping of the blades overbearingly loud. 

La Rue ran up to the helicopter door, yanking it open forcefully. “What do we got?”

An EMT hopped out of the helicopter. “Fifteen-year-old Katie Bryce. Multiple seizures, and IV lost en route. Began seizing a few minutes prior to landing.”

La Rue shoved Annabeth towards the gurney. “Let’s move! Get her into a room and load her up with a dose of Lorazepam.”

Annabeth snapped out of her daze and grabbed the gurney along with Piper, running back towards the elevator, La Rue and the others en route. 

“What floor?” Annabeth yelled over the sound of the helicopter blades.

“Two!” La Rue shouted.

The interns, among their frantic moving and yelling, somehow made it to the elevator. A minute later, the interns were in a large room filled with a plethora of medical instruments. La Rue was instructing them on what actions to take.

“Come on, Chase, get that IV in! Silena, where’s that ten milligrams Lorazepam?” La Rue observed the interns’ every moves. “Turn her on her side!”

Annabeth reached for the red and white leads, attempting to attach the red lead onto the right side of Bryce’s back.

“No, Chase! White goes on the right! Come on, large dose IV! Don’t let the blood start to hemolyze!”

Silena grabbed the ten milligrams Lorazepam and injected it quickly through the open IV. The reaction was immediate; Bryce stopped seizing and lay unconscious on the hospital bed. The room turned eerily quiet.

Annabeth leaned on the gurney, dropping her hands onto it and lowering her head. That was incredibly terrifying, and she’d been here less than an hour. _Wow_.

Annabeth tried to calm herself, breathing in and out through her mouth. She lifted her head when another doctor walked in.

“Good morning, Dr. Grace,” La Rue greeted.

“La Rue. What do we have here?” Grace grabbed the girl’s chart from a nurse’s hands, opening the binder up. “Grand mal seizures? Shotgun it.” Grace handed the charts back to La Rue and looked each intern in the eyes.

“Alright, people. That means every test in the books. Valdez, workups. Piper, you’re with labs. Run ‘em, get the results. Chase, you get that girl a CT scan. She’s under your care now.”

La Rue slid the charts back into the slot on the door and took a step out before Silena interrupted.

“Where do you want me?” she asked with enthusiasm.

La Rue rolled her eyes. “Congratulations. You’ve scored yourself some exciting rectal exams. Go at it.”

La Rue walked out and Silena’s mouth fell open in a mix of disbelief and disgust.

“I really get rectal exams. Wow. Okay.”

Annabeth straightened. “Well, you did ask,” she pointed out.

Silena scoffed towards Annabeth. “Shut up.”

Annabeth smiled sweetly, to which Silena huffed and walked haughtily out the door.

Annabeth addressed Piper and Leo. “I guess I should probably take her up to CT.”

The three of them looked at the girl’s unmoving body.

Annabeth sighed. “This is going to be a fun fourty-eight hours.”

Piper snickered. “ _Uh-huh_.”

* * *

Annabeth watched as the elevator slid open, revealing a creepy hallway lined with cement floors and cinderblock walls.

“You’re lost,” Katie Bryce stated matter of factly.

Annabeth looked at her, a mix of embarrassment and insult in her eyes. “I am not.”

Annabeth took another wrong turn.

“You’re so lost. What, are you new?”

“Why don’t you take a nap, or something?”

“Why don’t you learn your way around the hospital you work at, _or something?_ ” Katie mocked, sitting up and leaning on her arms that were stretched behind her.

“You’re a real project, you know,” Annabeth said, rolling Katie down the hall.

“You’re not a real doctor, _you know_.”

Annabeth’s eye twitched.

Katie continued talking. “All I’m saying is my doctor doesn’t even know what she’s doing, and she probably should. I mean, _hello_ , my life is literally in your hands.”

“Alright, settle down,” Annabeth scolded.

“You can’t tell me what to do. I’m in charge here, patient autonomy and all,” Katie finished wildly, flailing her hands around to prove her point.

Annabeth resisted running Katie into a cinderblock wall.

“Let’s just stay quiet until we reach CT, yeah?”

Katie threw herself back down onto the gurney. “That’s kind of boring.”

“Last I checked, I wasn’t here to entertain you.”

“It has to fall under some type of rule.”

“Shockingly, it doesn’t.”

“Do you do anything other than wander aimlessly around the basements of hospitals?”

“Wandering aimlessly is my fulltime job.”

“Aha! So, you admit you’re lost.”

Annabeth rolled her eyes.

Katie decided to keep going. “Well, I like to do rhythmic gymnastics. It’s a lot of fun and takes a lot of talent. I don’t think you’d understand what talent is, though.”

“I’m like ten years older than you,” Annabeth pointed out incredulously.

“So? Anyways, I tripped over my ribbon once and twisted my ankle. They brought me to the hospital, and I didn’t get stuck with a doctor who had no idea where CT was. I’m pretty sure that it was a nurse.”

“Go to _sleep.”_

* * *

**5 Hours**

* * *

Piper sat in the cafeteria eating her sandwich with Leo when Silena walked up looking just about ready to cry.

Piper raised an eyebrow as she took another bite. “Should I ask?”

Silena crossed her arms and put her face against the table. “No.”

Leo picked up his apple juice. “You should eat, Silena.”

“After performing over a dozen rectal exams? No thank you.” She pouted her lips and began to whine. “The Nazi hates me.”

“I have attendings that hate me. I couldn’t even find a guy’s vein. That’s literally the first thing they teach in medical school. Dr. Grace hates me,” Leo reassured.

Silena closed her eyes and said something suspiciously close to _Lord, give me the strength_.

Piper swallowed another bite. “Did you know Annabeth is a part of the royal family?”

Leo tilted his head. “Royal family?”

Piper nodded. “Her mother is Athena Chase.”

Silena’s head shot up. “No way!”

“I know, right!”

Leo interrupted. “Who’s Athena Chase?”

Silena and Piper looked at him, offended.

“ _The_ Athena Chase,” Piper stressed. “The Chase Method?”

Silena slammed her hands on the table. “Where did you go to medical school? Mt. Olympus? How do you not know of Athena Chase?”

“She’s won the Ares Zhang award twice, and she’s one of the first major female surgeons! You uncultured –” Piper stopped. “You know what, I can’t even look at you,” she complained, holding her hand up to his face.

“Wha–”

“Heads up!” Piper called to Leo, jerking her head towards Annabeth.

“Katie Bryce is awful,” Annabeth huffed, sitting down in an empty chair next to Piper. “I’d very much like to unleash some Jiu Jitsu on her sorry ass, but I’ve taken the Hippocratic Oath, so I _can’t_."

They stared at Annabeth.

“What?” Annabeth asked self-consciously.

Piper shrugged. “Nothing.”

Annabeth stole a fry from Piper’s lunch as Grace accosted the table of interns.

“As you know,” Grace hinted. “Seattle Grace has a tradition among the interns. The intern to show the most compromise as a surgeon gets to perform their first surgery, specifically an appendectomy.”

Annabeth sat up straight.

Grace locked eyes with Piper and then Annabeth.

“Congratulations,” he quipped, turning towards Leo. “Valdez, you’ll get to perform the appendectomy.”

Leo choked on his apple juice, some of it spilling out of his nose. “What?” he coaxed out with a scratchy voice.

Grace looked at him funny. “You’ll be performing the appendectomy later today.” He hesitantly looked at the group of four interns sitting at the table before walking away awkwardly without so much as another word.

Annabeth threw her half-eaten French fry down onto the table after Grace was out of earshot. “You’re _kidding_ me.”

Leo yelped. “Sorry.”

“ _I_ spent all day with pain-in-the-ass Bryce, and _you_ get to scrub in on an appendectomy. Just _great_.”

Annabeth pushed her chair away from the table, the legs scraping against the tiled floor piercingly, before storming away with her white coat trailing behind her.

* * *

“Dr. La Rue,” Annabeth called out as she held open a door. “Katie Bryce’s parents want to talk to someone. Should I do it myself or go get Grace?”

La Rue dropped the charts she was holding from her face. “No, Dr. Grace isn’t the attending anymore. It’s Dr. Jackson now.” She looked around. “He’s right over there,” La Rue pointed.

Annabeth followed her finger, and was met with the sight of _… Her one-night stand_.

“Um, actually,” Annabeth turned around, only to find La Rue gone.

“Great,” she hissed to herself.

Annabeth stood in place for a few seconds staring at Percy and deciding what to do. Just as she was about make her way out of the room and try to find La Rue again, Percy looked up casually and he actually did a double take, his vibrant green eyes locking onto her stormy grey ones.

Percy’s eyes lit up in recognition, and it seemed like he was about to call out to her. Annabeth turned sharply around and fled from the room, her cheeks already flaming red.

She made her way down the hall, avoiding looking over her shoulder where she could hear someone’s fast footsteps following her.

“Annabeth, can I talk to you for a second?” he pleaded, grabbing her upper arm firmly and dragging her towards a stairwell.

“Actually, I was –”

Percy pushed her into a stairwell gently, following close behind her. Annabeth whipped around.

“Dr. Jackson.”

“Dr. Jackson? This morning it was Percy.” Percy put one hand on the railing of the stairs, leaning on it slightly.

“ _Dr. Jackson_. We should pretend that it never happened.”

“Pretend sleeping with me never happened or you forcing me to do the walk of shame this morning?” Percy snickered. “I’d like very much to remember both events, thank you.”

Annabeth laughed in raw frustration, holding her hands up to her cheeks. “We can’t do this. You _will_ forget any of this happened. We aren’t in a bar anymore. We’re in a hospital and you’re my _boss_."

“You just feel bad.”

“ _What?”_

“You feel bad that you took advantage. I was drunk, you know.” Percy teased.

“ _I_ was drunk!”

“Advantage,” he repeated.

“Absolutely _not_.”

“Go out with me.”

“As I previously said, _absolutely not_.”

“Don’t sugar coat it,” he said sarcastically.

“I’m _literally_ your intern.”

“You didn’t know that before we slept together,” he pointed out.

“And now that I do, I seriously can’t go out with you. It’s just… wrong,” she cautioned.

Percy just smiled cheekily at her.

“I’m leaving,” she declared, lifting her hands to say _I’m done with this_.

“Wait,” Percy sighed, pretending as though he was about to apologize.

“ _What?”_

“Here’s Katie Bryce’s charts,” he said chirpily.

Annabeth stared at him and snatched the charts from his hands. She opened the stairwell doors to leave and just as Annabeth opened the doors, Percy decides that it would be a really fun idea to humiliate Annabeth to death.

“I’ve seen you naked!” Percy yells as Annabeth steps out, causing her to freeze in her tracks, smiling awkwardly at all the people who turned to look at the very embarrassing ordeal.

Annabeth backtracked into the room, making sure to wait until the door closes before smacking Percy on the arm with the heavy charts.

“You’re actually insane! Do you want to get me fired?”

Percy waved it off. “No one cares.”

“I do!”

Percy snorted.

“It’s not funny!”

“It kind of is,” he said with a sheepish tilt of his head.

Annabeth muttered _asshole_ under her breath.

“I heard that!”

Annabeth tugged open the door again. “Good!” she said, not bothering to look back over her shoulder.

* * *

Annabeth watched from the gallery as Leo was prepped for his appendectomy. Leo was standing awkwardly by the O.R. table, prepped in a gown and gloves, his scrub cap covering his curly hair.

“I bet ten bucks he’ll cry,” a random resident stated.

Piper snorted.

Another resident said, “Fifteen says he sweats himself unsterile.”

Other surgical residents began to pitch in, shouting out bets of a million different ways Leo’s going to fail the surgery.

Annabeth broke in. “Fifty says he pulls it off.”

The gallery went silent.

Annabeth was seething. “That’s the first intern performing the first surgery. You heard what Apollo said; we’re going to need help if we plan to make it through even our intern year. Instead of tearing him down, you should be supporting him because we all want the same thing. Stop betting on how he’s going to fail, and just support him and be proud, for crying out loud.”

Annabeth looked up and everyone was staring at her in disbelief. Down in the O.R., Leo stood looking up at Annabeth and nodded in thanks. Annabeth nodded back with a smile, trying to send him some comfort.

“Seventy-five says he can’t even I.D. the appendix,” Piper broke out in among the silence.

Annabeth bit back a few choice words. Arguing was pointless.

The betting and joking went on for a few more minutes until someone yelled out for everyone to shut up because the surgery was starting.

“Ready?” Dr. Grace asked Leo.

Leo nodded.

“Ten blade,” Leo said confidently, holding his hand out for a scrub nurse to place the sharp blade in his hand.

“Nicely done, Valdez,” Dr. Grace praised.

People in the gallery cheered loudly, despite having just been planning Leo’s demise as a surgeon.

Annabeth watched closely as Dr. Grace instructed Leo to open the patient up and seek out the appendix. Leo grabbed the clamps and successfully placed it on the stump of the appendix at Dr. Grace’s command.

The gallery was tense as everyone waited to see if he would be able to do it. Leo grabbed the scalpel and managed to take the appendix out, and the gallery broke out into a mix of cheering and groaning at loss of money.

“I told you he was going to do it,” Annabeth spit out over her shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah,” Piper dismissed, upset that she just lost quite a bit of money.

“Now, invert the stump back into the cecum, and pull on the purse strings at the same time,” Dr. Grace instructed Leo.

Leo began to do so, and Dr. Grace warned him again.

“Now be careful while pulling on the strings; you don’t want to accidentally–”

Before Dr. Grace could finish his words, Leo did exactly what Grace wanted to avoid.

“Break them,” Dr. Grace finished in calm frustration, clenching his fists over the sterile zone as he watched Leo tug too hard on the strings and rip the cecum open.

Annabeth sat on the edge of the seat, biting her lip nervously and tasting blood. “Come on, Leo.”

“The patient’s abdomen is now filling with stool. How do you want to proceed, Valdez?”

Leo froze. He couldn’t think of what to do next.

“Think, Valdez! How do you fix this?”

Still no response.

“Her blood pressure is dropping,” a nurse told them.

When Leo made no attempt to move, Grace shoved Leo out of the way.

“Move!” Grace took the instruments from Leo’s hands. “Suction.”

Grace suctioned out the stool and looked for the purse strings in the abdomen. Leo stood in his spot, unable to move and not sure what to do.

Someone up in the gallery snickered. “He’s 007!”

People began to laugh, and Annabeth told them to shut it, along with some other choice words.

Silena tilted her head like a confused puppy. “What’s 007?”

“Licensed to kill,” Annabeth informed her without making eye contact.

Leo looked up at Annabeth, and she could see his eyes brimming with tears of embarrassment. His cheeks were burning red under his mask that he ripped off of his face before throwing it in the surgical waste bin and forcing his way out of the operating room.

Annabeth rubbed her face in exhaustion. This couldn’t be good.

* * *

**19 Hours**

* * *

After what felt like an eternity, Annabeth found herself among the other interns under La Rue’s instruction.

The four of the interns managed to find a relatively empty hall lined with empty beds, and they took it up with their presence. Annabeth lay on a bed by herself, her hands crossed neatly across her stomach as she tried to prevent herself from dozing off, a bit unsuccessfully.

“They’re calling me 007,” Leo stammered, rolling himself up and down the hall in a wheelchair. “They’re actually calling me 007.”

Annabeth was pulled out of her sleepy haze, responding with a slow, low voice. “They’re not calling you 007.”

“I heard some someone snicker in the elevator and call me 007.”

Annabeth clenched her fist, rolling over in the bed to face away from Leo.

“Don’t turn away! Tell me if they’re calling me 007!”

“They’re not calling you 007.”

“You’re lying,” he accused maliciously.

Annabeth rolled her eyes, grabbing a pillow and silently wondered if she should smother Leo with it until she decided to smother herself instead, pressing it over her head to block out Leo’s whining voice.

Piper’s back popped as she hopped off of another bed. “Leo,” she started as she headed towards a vending machine and put a dollar in. “If you complain again, I will shove a scalpel down your throat.”

Leo stuck his nose in the air in indignance. “Someone called me 007 and the whole elevator laughed.”

Annabeth removed the pillow after a failed attempt at smothering herself. “We wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Yes, you really would.”

Silena, being the nicest of them all, tried to comfort Leo. “I’m sure they weren’t referencing you.”

“Who else, then?”

Piper banged her head against the vending machine. “I’m going to kill you, Leo,” she whispered. Piper shifted to face Leo. “They weren’t calling you 007, and if they were, who cares? They’ll all kill someone eventually.”

Leo’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’t kill him!”

Piper stopped. “You didn’t?”

“No!”

“Oh.” Piper shrugged. “Well, anyways, just ignore them. They’re no better than you.”

“Says Piper, valedictorian of her class at Stanford Medical School.”

Piper was ready to bite out a harsh insult, but someone’s pager went off. All the interns looked down at where their pagers were clipped to their scrubs.

Annabeth huffed and banged her head against the mattress once for good measure. “It’s a 911 for Katie.”

“You should’ve been out that door twenty seconds ago, then.”

Annabeth sat up in her bed. “Thank you for that, Piper.”

“My pleasure,” Piper said with a sickly-sweet smile.

Annabeth mocked her smile back to her, causing Piper to snicker. Annabeth squeezed the juice box in Piper’s mouth to make her choke on her apple juice she just got, and then she sprinted down the hallway to get to Katie’s room.

Annabeth ran out of the hall, pushing the door open with quite some force, before running towards the elevator. She pressed the button five time as though it would make a difference in the rate at which the elevator arrived.

“ _Come on_ ,” Annabeth whispered to herself, frantically pushing the button a few more times for good measure, before taking a step back.

The elevator dinged open, finally, and Annabeth stepped on, immediately pressing the button for Katie Bryce’s floor, and forcing the elevator doors to close, not at all sorry for the people who had been about to step over the threshold to the elevator.

Annabeth stood on the elevator for what felt like an eternity before it finally opened once again. She sprinted out of the elevator, making a sharp turn left and calling out a few excuse me’s to the people that stood in her way and body-checking those who still didn’t move.

Once Annabeth reached the room, she burst inside, her chest heaving, expecting to find Katie deathly ill on the bed. That is not what she got.

Instead, Katie was sitting up on the bed, a magazine in her hands. Upon entering the room, Katie lowered the magazine onto her lap.

“It took you long enough. I could’ve been dead by now.”

Annabeth looked at her, trying to tell herself that this fifteen-year-old girl couldn’t be this stupid.

“I’m bored.”

This fifteen-year-old girl is really this stupid.

Annabeth picked up Katie’s charts and walked up to the bed slowly and with a layer of simmering rage. “So, there’s not an emergency?” 

“God, no.”

Annabeth turned around to calm herself before she yelled at the girl. She counted to three in her head. It didn’t work.

Annabeth whipped back around and raised her voice. “So, you mean to tell me that there’s nothing wrong with you!”

“Well, obviously something’s wrong. I am in the hospital, after all.”

Annabeth tried not to yell again. Once again, it didn’t work.

“This is a hospital! People here are sick! People here are dying! I am not your own personal entertainment. I am a _doctor._ ”

Katie almost looked hurt for a second, before reverting back to her usual self.

“I know that,” she said with a hint of sass. “It’s just that this stupid hospital doesn’t even get good channels. I’m going to lose my pageant, so the least this hospital can do is let me watch it happen.”

Annabeth didn’t even know how respond to this. She knew she’d just about scream if she opened her mouth, so instead, she accosted the girl to check her vitals.

“Can you find someone to let me watch my pageant?”

Annabeth scoffed and dropped the charts onto the pull-out table at the end of the bed. “Go to sleep.”

“You’re a terrible doctor.”

“Go to sleep,” Annabeth repeated.

“My mind is racing, so I can’t.”

“Then think. Don’t bother me again unless it’s an actual emergency.”

“This is an emergency!” Katie called to Annabeth, who was already half out the door.

Annabeth stormed out of the room and took her hair out of the low ponytail it had been sitting in for a few hours. She ran her hand through her messy curls, closing her eyes and just wishing that this shift was even close to over.

* * *

**23 Hours**

* * *

Annabeth was in a room scattered with multiple post operation patients. She was filling out some information on a paper for another patient when she tuned into another intern’s loud conversation.

“They have post-operative pneumonia. Just start them on some antibiotics.” The guy talking closed and handed a binder to a nurse.

The female nurse took it hesitantly. “Are you sure that’s the right diagnosis?”

The guy rolled his eyes, quite blatantly. “I’m not sure. I only did four years of medical school, after all.” He crossed his arms. “The patient has a fever and infection. I may be an intern, but I know how to do my damn job, so don’t question me again.”

Annabeth, facing away from them and pretending to busy as she listened, raised her eyebrows in surprise. An intern had guts to talk to a nurse that way, goodness.

“Yes, doctor,” the nurse said submissively, going to put away the charts and do as she was told.

“God, I hate nurses,” the guy said loudly. He looked around and spotted Annabeth leaning over the counter and filling papers out. Against his better judgement, he approached her.

“Nurses, right?” he asked Annabeth with a laugh, expecting Annabeth to laugh along. All he got was a blank stare.

“So,” he continued. “I’m Charles Beckendorf. You’re with La Rue, right?”

Annabeth gave him a pinched smile and nodded, returning to her paperwork.

“You know,” she interjected as he opened his mouth to speak again. “It may not be pneumonia. It could be splinting, or any number of things.”

Charles groaned. “Like I said, I hate nurses.”

Annabeth slammed her binder shut. “Did you just call me a nurse?”

He smirked. “Pretty princess like you can’t be a doctor. Too blonde,” he said, pointing to his own head to reference hers.

Annabeth choked back the oncoming insults, instead choosing to look down at her pager as it beeped loudly. _Bryce, K. 911._

“Damn it,” Annabeth said through gritted teeth, shooting Charles one more dangerous glace before heading off to her patient.

This time, Annabeth took her time making her way up the floors, assuming Katie needed someone to annoy again. By the time she made her way to the floor and Katie’s room was in sight, she spotted the nurses crowded inside the room, filled with frantic, overlapping voices. Annabeth’s heart dropped and she ran through the door.

“What took you so long?” a passing nurse questioned.

“What happened?” Annabeth demanded, grabbing the binder that was shoved into her hands by a nurse. She looked at the girl that lay unconscious on the bed, seizing harshly.

“Several grand mal seizures. How do you want to proceed?” another nurse asked, pressing buttons on the monitor.

Annabeth froze.

“Dr. Chase? Listen to me!”

Annabeth couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t know what to do, but if she didn’t do something, Katie was going to die. Annabeth was panicking and tried to move, but her limbs felt like lead.

Katie had an oxygen mask being forced over her face, and her eyes were half open but only the whites of her eyes were visible. Her mouth began to foam as the seizing only grew harsher.

“She’s already but administered 2 milligrams of Lorazepam, and some Diazepam. How do you want to proceed, doctor?”

Annabeth finally managed to break through her cloud of panic. She opened the binder. “You’ve already given Lorazepam?”

“Four milligrams administered minutes ago.”

Annabeth was shaking. “You’ve paged Dr. Jackson and Dr. La Rue?”

“Yes! Lorazepam isn’t working.”

“Phenobarbital. Give her phenobarbital.”

“It’s in,” a nurse told her.

“No change,” another pitched in.

“You’ve paged Dr. Jackson?”

“We already told you!”

“Well, page him again!” Annabeth was near hysterics.

“You need to tell us what you want to do!”

Annabeth opened her mouth but was cut off by the high-pitched sound radiating from the vitals monitor signifying Katie’s flatlining.

“Heart has stopped,” a guy yelled, pushing a button on the wall. “Code blue!”

“Get the crash cart,” Annabeth commanded, putting the charts down and stumbling over to Katie’s side.

A female nurse dragged the crash cart over and handed Annabeth the paddles. Annabeth grabbed the paddles and held them out to apply gel to them, and then she rubbed them together.

“Charge to 200,” Annabeth said, placing the paddles onto Katie’s chest and side.

“Charged. Clear!”

The shock came from the paddles with a loud crack. Katie jerked unconsciously from the force of the shock.

“No change. V-fib!”

“Nineteen seconds,” someone piped in frantically to tell the room how long Katie had been under.

“Charge again, 300!” Annabeth said over her shoulder.

“Charged. Clear!”

The shock came again.

“No change!”

Annabeth bit her lip, drawing blood. “ _Come on_ , Katie,” she said pleadingly. “Charge to 360!”

“Charged. Clear!”

“Still nothing?” Annabeth asked.

“No. Twenty-seven seconds!”

A guy next to her looked her in the eyes. “Do you want to administer another drug?”

Annabeth growled. “Charge again!”

The female nurse with the crash cart looked at her nervously.

“Charge again!” she repeated more forcefully.

“Charged. Clear!”

This time, the monitor showed her heart starting to beat again.

“I see sinus rhythm!” the female nurse informed the room.

The guy next to her looked at the monitor. “Blood pressure is coming back up.”

Annabeth sighed in relief, handing the paddles back to the female nurse. Dr. Jackson stormed into the room, his eyes falling upon Annabeth’s small figure.

“What the hell happened?” he asked.

“She had a seizure,” she explained.

“You should’ve been monitoring her!”

“I had just checked on her!” Annabeth defended.

Percy took his stethoscope off from around his neck and held up a hand in Annabeth’s direction. “You know what? Just get out. Go!”

Annabeth took a step back in shock at his tone of voice.

Percy listened to Katie’s heart. “Someone give me her chart, please.” He looked up at Annabeth again, and pointed for her to go out the door.

Annabeth shook her head in disbelief, her jaw clenching. She made sure he could see her as she did so, and she left silently.

The second she was out the door, La Rue was onto her.

“You get a 911, the first thing you do is page me! You don’t take care of it yourself; you page me! _Immediately_! I don’t – Hey, don’t you walk away from me, Chase! Chase!”

Annabeth continued off, ignoring La Rue’s calls for her to come back. She pushed open a swinging door and was met with Piper and Leo chatting up a storm.

“Annabeth?” Piper asked in concern upon seeing her pale face.

Annabeth kept walking, and Piper called out after her and began to follow her to make sure she was okay.

Annabeth continued to weave her way around the halls and downstairs, where she opened a door leading to a grassy area. She walked over to a tree, where she doubled over and threw up.

Piper approached her, reaching out to rub her back soothingly. “Annabeth?”

Annabeth simply stood back up and wiped her mouth. She turned to Piper.

“If you ever tell _anyone_ about this, I will make you regret it,” she threatened.

Before Piper could question her anymore, Annabeth was already back inside and running off to find a place to be alone for a bit.

* * *

**27 Hours**

* * *

“What are you doing?” Annabeth asked as she watched Piper suture a banana.

“I,” Piper said as she pulled up on a string, “am practicing my skills. Keeps me awake, too, which is a plus.”

Annabeth watched Piper carefully and tried to point to a specific stitch. “Wait, no, you’re doing it wrong. You need to –”

Piper shoved Annabeth’s hand away, to which Annabeth rolled her eyes. “Get your own banana.”

Leo was sitting against a chair, looking just about done with life. He smothered a laugh into a cough as Piper cursed and screwed another stitch up.

Piper looked up. “What are you smiling at, 007?”

Leo’s smile fell.

“Piper,” Annabeth chastised.

“I get mean when I’m tired!” Piper said defensively.

“It’s okay, Annabeth. Piper just doesn’t know how to deal with people. Besides, I got to be in an O.R. today, and I made a family feel better, _so_.”

Annabeth rolled her eyes good naturedly. “Does anyone have any idea what we’re even doing here, anyways?”

Piper and Leo shook their heads.

People went on chatting for a few more minutes, a few interns cavorting around the room. Annabeth sat on a table against a wall, her legs crossed over themselves. Her head lay against Piper’s shoulder, beginning to doze off again until someone new entered the room.

“Good morning,” Percy addressed the interns. “I’m sure you’re all wondering what you’re doing here. I’m going to be doing something that not many attendings do.”

Annabeth lifted her head off of Piper’s shoulder, and Percy locked eyes with her again as he spoke, seemingly talking to Annabeth specifically.

“I need help on a case, and I’m asking you guys. Katie Bryce, a fifteen-year-old girl is having grand mal seizures. I can’t figure out why. She’s not responding to any medications, and we can’t get these seizures to stop. They’re unexplained as of right now. She’s a medical mystery.”

“Because I can’t figure this out by myself, I’m asking you. Take to the books and try to find anything to explain these seizures. I know you’re all exhausted, and probably don’t want to take up another case, so I’ll give you guys an incentive.”

Percy slammed a large stack of copies of Katie’s file onto the table in the center of the room.

“As I’m sure you all know, I’m a neurosurgeon. Whatever is wrong with Katie is going to require a surgery. Whoever finds out what’s going on gets to do something unheard of. I’m going to let you scrub in on a complex brain surgery, something no intern here has done before.”

Piper sat up straighter, intrigued. Silena’s mouth fell open slightly.

Percy stuck his hands in the pockets of his coat. “Starting now, you guys can hit the books and find an answer. The files you’ll need are on the table. Any questions, just ask me or your resident. Good luck.”

Percy left the room, and the second he did so, the room went chaotic. Everyone was talking over each other, screaming about how they wanted the surgery. Some people left the room, probably to go to the library, while others sat back in defeat, knowing that they’d never get the surgery.

Piper threw her banana down. “ _Annabeth_. Please work with me.”

Annabeth stood up, slow and steady. “Why?”

“You’ve been with Bryce since the beginning, so you have an advantage.”

Annabeth put her white coat back on. “Fine. But if we find it, I don’t want the surgery. You can have it.”

“What! _Why_?”

“I don’t want to be alone with Jackson any more than necessary.”

“What did he do?”

“You can have the surgery. Do you want to work together, or not?”

Piper tried not to look ecstatic. “Oh, um, okay. That’s fine with me.”

Annabeth pulled her hair out from below the coat. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go hit up the library.”

* * *

Before going to the library, Annabeth had to take a pit stop to pick up some of Katie’s labs. She ran into Charles talking to the same nurse again.

“You paged me?” he asked the nurse, snatching the charts from the nurse.

“Your patient is still out of breath. The antibiotics didn’t work.”

“You have to give them time to work,” he told the nurse slowly as though she was a toddler. “She’s old.”

“The antibiotics should’ve worked by now.”

“Just wait. I have better things to do than deal with someone older than the Greek Gods,” he said with a harsh snap, shoving the charts back into the nurse’s hands. He was already half out the room when he called out, “Don’t page me again.”

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. _If it’s not pneumonia, he’s in big trouble_ she mused to herself.

* * *

An hour later, Piper and Annabeth were buried nose deep into piles of medical books.

“It’s not a tumor, right?” Piper asked.

Annabeth shook her head. “The CT was clean.”

“And it’s not anoxia, or acidosis?”

“We’ve went over this.”

Piper dropped a book open in her lap. “Are you really not going to tell me why you don’t want to be with Jackson?”

“No. I wonder if it’s infection.”

“It can’t be. There isn’t a fever, or any lesions. Her labs show a normal white count.” Piper paused. “Just tell me.”

Annabeth dropped her head back in annoyance. “If I tell you, promise me you won’t say anything or make fun of me. _No reaction_ at all.”

Piper nodded.

“We had sex.”

Piper’s jaw went slack for a second before she caught herself. In an attempt to abide by her promise, she continued on. “Maybe it’s an aneurysm.”

“The head CT was clean.”

“She has no trauma, and she’s not pregnant. Was he good in bed? I get the vibe that he is.” 

“I’ll kill you.” Annabeth stood up and moved a book back into its original position on the shelf. “We have no answers.”

“Aw. I wanted to scrub in.”

“You’re such a sweet person, Piper.”

“I’m a surgeon. I didn’t get here by being sweet, and I know I’ve only known you for a day, but I get the feeling that you didn’t either.” 

“I stand by my previous statement. _So sweet_.” Annabeth put her hair up in a messy bun. “She’s going to die if we don’t figure this out.”

“Now you make me feel like a bad person.”

“Do you know her pageant talent? It’s rhythmic gymnastics.” Annabeth started shaking in stifled laughter. “I mean, what even is that?”

Piper scrunched her nose as she smiled. “It sounds painful. What does that even mean?”

“I think it involves a ribbon, or something. And she –” Annabeth broke off in realization, a lightbulb going off in her eyes.

“Annabeth?” Piper stumbled to her feet. “What is it?”

Annabeth bent down and started putting books away frantically.

“Annabeth? Tell me!”

“She tripped over her ribbon a few weeks ago.”

Piper’s eyes went wide.

* * *

“Dr. Jackson!” Piper ran towards Percy who had just walked onto an elevator and was writing on a notepad. She stuck her slim arm between the closing doors.

Percy glanced up to Annabeth and Piper, and then looked around at the people in the elevator who just wanted to move floors. “What is it, McLean?”

“Katie participates in beauty pageants.”

Percy looked down and continued writing on his notepad. “I know that. We have to save her life anyways.”

The doors began closing again, and Piper forced them open again. “Her head CT shows no brain bleeding and she has no headaches, or neck pain. There’s no indication of an aneurysm.”

“Get on with it, McLean.”

“What if she has an aneurysm anyway?”

Percy shook his head, pocketing his pen and notepad. “There’s nothing telling us of a brain bleed.”

Annabeth stepped in. “She twisted her ankle doing rhythmic gymnastics a few weeks ago. She was fine and got right back up.”

Percy pursed his lips. “I get you’re trying to help, but there’s nothing telling us that this is an aneurysm. We would’ve seen it when we did a CT.”

The doors tried closing again, but Annabeth forced her hand in aggressively. “She fell. She twisted her ankle and fell. It might’ve triggered an aneurysm and she just didn’t know it.”

Piper interjected. “It was so minor. Not even a bump on her head, and her doctor didn’t even remember her falling initially. It was so small, but she _did_ fall.”

“Do you know how rare it is that an aneurysm doesn’t show up on a CT? Literally one in a million.” Percy looked at them with sympathy. “Thank you for trying, but it’s near impossible that this is an aneurysm.”

The doors to the elevator closed, and this time, Annabeth and Piper took a step back in bitter defeat.

“Great,” Annabeth muttered. “Now what?”

Piper tugged on a braid that sat in her hair. “I guess we keep looking.”

They turned around dejectedly, and just as they were about to leave to search for an answer to an impossible situation, the elevators dinged open.

Annabeth and Piper turned around and were met with Percy walking out.

“Let’s go.”

Piper and Annabeth exchanged looks. “Go where?”

“Let’s find out if Katie is one in a million.”

* * *

Annabeth and Piper stood next to Percy, watching Katie’s angiogram closely.

Annabeth was nibbling on her bottom lip, watching the screen as the dye made its way through Katie’s blood vessels. The dye was going through the vessels, and there was no aneurysm to be found.

Annabeth huffed and put her face in her hands, just about ready to have a breakdown.

Percy’s shoulders dropped. “I’m sorry, guys. There’s –” Percy stopped in his track, moving in closer to the screen. “I’ll be damned.”

Annabeth lifted her hands, moving closer and looking at where Percy was pointing.

“There it is,” Percy said. “It’s so minute, it’s no wonder it didn’t show up on the CT alone. It’s a subarachnoid hemorrhage.”

“Wait, so the problem is an aneurysm?” Piper questioned

“It is.”

Piper fist-pumped the air and dragged Annabeth in for a hug. “We did it!”

Annabeth squeezed Piper back. “She’s going to be okay.”

“We need to get Katie to surgery as soon as possible,” Percy interrupted. He began to walk away to find Katie’s parents. “You coming?”

Annabeth and Piper nodded simultaneously, following Percy’s path around the massive hospital.

Annabeth made her way up to Percy’s side, and he looked at her, reaching out to rub her back sweetly. “You did good.”

Annabeth wanted to move away, but another part of her didn’t. “I’m just glad she’s finally going to know what’s happening to her.”

Piper looked at Annabeth, and then Percy’s hand on her back with an eyebrow raised.

 _Shut up_ , Annabeth mouthed to Piper.

“Yeah. She could’ve gone her entire life without this aneurysm ever rupturing – she just managed to hit the wrong spot, and it ruptured.” Percy snapped to prove his point.

The three of them reached a nurse’s station. “Katie Bryce’s chart, please,” Percy asked. “You two did great work,” he said to the interns.

Piper stepped forwards to remind him of something. “Dr. Jackson, you said you’d pick someone to scrub in with you.”

“Hm. Oh, yes, unfortunately I can’t take both of you.” He looked up from the chart he had been buried in. “Annabeth, you get to scrub in. Be in O.R. three in an hour.”

Piper looked at Annabeth expectantly, waiting for her to tell him she didn’t want it. Annabeth opened her mouth, ready to do so, but nothing came out. She couldn’t bring herself to give up the surgery. She didn’t want it, and yet she _did_.

Percy smiled at the two girls and turned around to find Katie’s parents and inform them of the coming surgery.

Piper looked at Annabeth, betrayal plain as day in her eyes. She shook her head in disbelief and stormed away from Annabeth.

“Piper…” Annabeth started pleadingly, but Piper didn’t turn around.

Annabeth watched Piper leave, crossing her arms in front of her to try and comfort herself.

* * *

After searching for Piper for a good thirty minutes, Annabeth found her sitting in the same hallway as earlier with Silena, silently seething.

Annabeth put her weight against a wall, crossing her arms. “I’ll tell him I changed my mind.”

Piper stopped her right there. “Don’t try to do me any favors. It’s fine. You decided to be a backstabber, and that’s on you. You don’t get to stand there and try to make yourself feel better. What you did was backstabbing so now you get to deal with it.”

“Piper.”

“No! You know what? I had to actually work for that solution. I worked for that surgery! I didn’t get picked for this surgery because I _slept with my boss_.”

Annabeth’s mouth dropped open.

“Oh! Not to mention, I had to work my way into medical school. I don’t have a mommy that’s a world class surgeon, unlike _you_.”

Annabeth grit her teeth. It seemed like Piper realized what she said, but it was too late. The damage was already done. Annabeth went back down the hall, forcing the unwelcome tears not to fall.

* * *

**40 Hours**

* * *

Annabeth found Percy sitting in Katie’s room with an electric razor in his hand.

“Hey,” Percy said as he buzzed off another section of Katie’s head. “I told her I’d make her look cool. Apparently, a bald beauty queen is the worst thing to happen in the history of the universe.”

“Yeah…” Annabeth said, picking at skin on her lips.

Percy looked up at her again, finding her pacing slightly. “Are you okay?’’ 

Annabeth dropped her hand and took a step towards. “Did you, uh, pick me to scrub in because I slept with you?”

Percy cackled, moving around Katie in his rolling chair. “Yes.”

Annabeth’s eyes widened. “Dr. Jackson!”

Percy buzzed another strand of hair off. “Annabeth, I’m kidding. I didn’t pick you because you slept with me.”

She paused to run his words through her head. “I’m going scrubbing in. I told Piper I’d let her have it. She was really excited for this surgery.”

He set the razor down. “Annabeth. Katie is your patient. On your very first day as a doctor, you managed to find what was wrong with her when even _I_ couldn’t. You deserve the change to see Katie get better again.”

“Piper helped me.”

“Tell me. Whose idea was it that this could be an aneurysm?”

Annabeth didn’t answer.

“I thought so. Don’t let this –us– get in the way of you working your way towards being an amazing surgeon.”

Annabeth’s eyes were glossy.

_“You deserve this opportunity, Annabeth.”_

* * *

“Life would be so much better if we had just become a cashier, or a preschool teacher. Why couldn’t we have done that instead?” Annabeth asked mindlessly.

Leo leaned back against the glass window of the outside ledge they had taken up. “I wanted to be a mechanic. I should’ve become a mechanic. I should’ve partied more. I never partied in college.”

“Parties.”

“I’m serious! We really should’ve partied in college, since now we aren’t going to get the chance to, it appears.”

“Hmm, I don’t know. I partied quite a bit in medical school.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Lots of drinking and boys. Much better than being an intern in a surgical residency.”

“Ah, yes, the aforementioned surgery crisis.”

“Don’t tell me you’re _not_ having a crisis. I actually have no idea why I did this. I literally can’t give you one reason I want to be a surgeon. Maybe my mom was right.” Annabeth turned her head towards Leo. “Did you know my mother didn’t want me to be a surgeon.”

Leo looked confused. “Why not?”

“She just thought I wasn’t good enough. No one could ever be better than her in her eyes. Not even her own daughter.”

“Really? My mom was over the moon when I told her I wanted to be a surgeon.”

“We have very different mothers.”

“Why would your mom think you aren’t good enough? You’re the smartest intern here.”

“My mother just isn’t a very warm and fuzzy person, I guess. She never wanted children.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“No. I’m surprised my mother even kept me, if I’m being honest. She always treated me like I was a burden to her medical career.”

“Where is she now?”

Annabeth tensed. “She’s in Boston.”

“Oh.”

“Anyways, enough about me. Why are you sitting out here?”

Leo groaned. “Don’t remind me. I promised a family that a surgery would turn out okay. The patient didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s my own fault. I shouldn’t have promised.” Leo wrinkled his nose. “And now I have an attending after my ass. Dr. Grace is _not_ happy with me.”

“We all learn somehow.”

“I just wish it didn’t suck so much.”

“Me too.”

* * *

Annabeth found herself in a room with the same obnoxious guy who hates nurses yet _again_. And, it looks like he’s about to learn his lesson.

Dr. Apollo analyzed Charles’ patient. “They’re still short of breath. Did you get chest films?”

Charles nodded confidently. “I did.”

“What was on it?”

“Oh, uh… I had a lot of patients last night,” Charles explained, giving a nervous smile.

Dr. Apollo didn’t seem to buy it. “What are the common causes of post-operative fevers?”

Charles stammered, reaching into his coat pocket for a slip of paper. “Yes, sir. It’s –”

“From your head,” Dr. Apollo told him sternly. “You’re a doctor. You need to know this.”

Charles looked at Dr. Apollo, his fingers unable to stay still. “The common causes are…”

Dr. Apollo scoffed and addressed the whole room. “Who can name the common causes of post-operative fevers?”

People started reaching into their pockets for their notes, but Annabeth answered before anyone else could.

“Wind, water, wound, walking, wonder drugs. The five W’s,” Annabeth recited. “It’s typically wind, specifically pneumonia. Pneumonia is easy to assume, especially if you’re too lazy to run all the proper tests,” Annabeth said, looking directly at Charles as she spoke.

Dr. Apollo also looked at Charles for the last part. “What do _you_ think is the patient’s problem?”

“I’d have to say it’s walking. I think she has a pulmonary embolus.” 

“Diagnosis?”

“Spiral C.T., V/Q scan, give them oxygen and a dose of heparin. After that, you’d consult for an IVC filter.”

Dr. Apollo nodded, impressed. “Dr. Beckendorf, do everything she just said. Then, I want you off this case.”

Dr. Apollo slowly walked by Annabeth. “I’d recognize you anywhere. You look exactly as your mother.” He gave a polite nod. “Great job.”

Annabeth nodded with a tight smile. “Thank you.”

* * *

Annabeth scrubbed in for four minutes, rubbing the betadine antiseptic soap up to her elbows and rinsing it off. She looked up through the window into the operating room where people had on surgical scrub caps and masks covering their faces, similarly to Annabeth.

This was Annabeth’s first operation and she was getting increasingly nervous. As she walked into the O.R., a scrub nurse put on her surgical gown and gloves. Annabeth stood at the table next to Percy, she began to wonder what led her to wanting to become a surgeon.

She realizes that there isn’t any one thing that made her want to become a surgeon. She couldn’t think of why she decided to do four years of college and then four years of medical school, followed by a seven-year residency. She could only think of why she shouldn’t do it.

Being a surgeon wasn’t going to be easy for her. It was going to push her further than she knew was possible. It was going to be filled with days far worse than what even her first shift held for her.

She really looked for what drew her to surgery. It wasn’t any one thing, she supposes. Perhaps she wanted to prove her mother wrong. Maybe she just loved helping people. Maybe it was a mix of those things.

Annabeth watched as Percy got gowned and gloved up. She listened to his words that she would soon realize his special thing, his own tradition. _It’s a beautiful day to save lives._

When he picked up a blade and made the first cut to an operation that would save Katie’s life, she sucked in a breath. Percy was looking through a surgical microscope, making the smallest of movements and cuts and slices. The actions that would transform Katie’s life, her quality of life. A life wasn’t worth living if the quality of life was gone, after all.

When Percy looked up from the microscope and made eye contact with Annabeth, she knew that he was silently telling her to move closer to his side and get a better look. Annabeth smiled from behind her mask. She moved closer to the table looked through the microscope to see what he was doing.

As Annabeth stood watching Percy’s actions, something dawns on her. The reason she became a surgeon wasn’t that she wanted to prove her mother wrong, or that she simply liked the human body.

It was that she loved the feeling of being in the operating room, of having the ability to save lives. Surgery wasn’t something that everyone was capable of doing, but it was something that she could do. Annabeth loves the field, the competition, the rush you get when you’re the only one that can make such a significant difference in someone’s life.

Annabeth’s body relaxes for what feels like the first time since she started her shift. She could do this. She was made for this.

* * *

Annabeth walked out of the O.R. a few hours later to find Piper slumped over in a chair.

“Hey,” Annabeth said, sitting down next to her.

Piper looked up from where her head lay in her hand. “Hey. Where’s Katie?”

“Percy’s closing her up.”

“ _Percy_?”

Annabeth smartly stayed silent.

“We don’t have to do that thing where we apologize and cry and hug, do we?” Piper asked.

“That’s disgusting, oh my god.”

“ _Thank god_.”

The girls broke out into giggles.

Once Piper calmed down a little, she decides that it might be fun to mess around Annabeth.

“You look _disgusting_. You need to shower or sleep, or something.”

Annabeth smacked her arm lazily. “I look better than you do,” she pointed out.

“You wish you did.” Piper stood up from her chair. “Well, I’m going to go catch up on sleep. I’ll see you later.” 

Annabeth wiggled her fingers in a wave, her attention averting towards Percy who had just walked out of the operating room.

“I never knew how good it felt to perform an operation. It was– it was _unreal_.” Annabeth laughed deliriously. “Why do drugs when you can do surgery?”

“Yeah,” Percy agreed, taking off his scrub cap and running his fingers through his black hair. “Surgery is incredible. Surgery is also _for_ the incredible. You’re going to make an amazing surgeon one day.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.” Percy gave her a sweet smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

“That sounds like a plan.”

“Goodnight, Annabeth.”

“Goodnight.”

* * *

**48 Hours**

* * *

Annabeth was changed out of her light blue scrubs, her keys in hand. She was ready to go home and just sleep after the last fourty-eight hours of her life.

She was walking out of the hospital with the other interns in her group. Piper was skipping around the parking lot, and Leo shoved her roughly, to which Piper started chasing him.

Annabeth laughed as Leo raced in front of her and used her as a human shield in order to avoid Piper’s unleashed wrath.

“Leo!” Silena laughed as he tripped face first towards the ground. “Goodness, you two are insane.”

“I finished my first day of intern year! I get to be a little insane,” he pointed out.

“Speaking of surviving the first day, we should go get drinks! I hear there’s a really good bar right across the road,” Piper proposed.

Annabeth remembers the first time she went to that bar and her cheeks turn sanguine.

“I’m down,” Silena said.

“Me too,” Leo followed.

The three of them turned towards Annabeth expectantly.

“Oh, I think I’m just going to go home and catch up on sleep.” The others groaned. “You guys go have fun. Go party. We all know you didn’t enough in medical school.”

“You did,” Leo said, pointing towards her matter-of-factly.

“Which is why I’m just going to head home.”

 _“Fine_ ,” Piper said. “Sleep well, Annabeth.”

“I will. Be safe, you three.”

They hugged and said their goodbyes before splitting ways. Annabeth unlocked her car and got in, taking a moment to simply revel in the glory of sitting in a comfortably cushioned seat. 

She was ready to go home and sleep for the next two years, but she had something else that was much more important that she needed to attend to first. 

Putting her keys in the ignition, she turned the car on and drove to her next stop.

* * *

Annabeth was sat in front of a coffee table, her hands holding a black mug filled with hot chocolate that she’d been offered as she walked in to the home for Alzheimer’s.

“I’ve been thinking, and I’ve decided I’m going to keep the house,” Annabeth told her mom. “I’ll probably end up living with a few other people, but it’s my home. I want to keep it.”

Annabeth’s mother twirls her hair around her finger, looking like she was off in another world. “Who are you?”

Annabeth faltered. “I’m your daughter. Annabeth.”

“Oh.”

Annabeth fell silent.

“Are you my doctor?”

“No, mom. I’m _a_ doctor, just not yours.”

“I see.”

Annabeth sat and watched her mom tinker around with her fingers nervously. It pains her to see her mother so sick.

Five years ago, her mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. It progressed very quickly, so Annabeth found herself putting her mom in a home. Annabeth didn’t want to do it, but her mother asked her to because she didn’t want anyone to find out about her diagnosis.

Annabeth didn’t have the means to care for her mother either, but it still pained her to know that she had to abandon her mom. Annabeth went to see her as often as she could, but Annabeth was busy. Especially since she was starting her intern year, Annabeth knew she wouldn’t see her mom as much as she would’ve liked.

“I think I used to be a doctor,” her mother said.

Annabeth takes her mom’s hand in hers. “You were. You were a surgeon.”

“I always wanted to be a surgeon.”

Annabeth pulled back.

Surgery was her mother’s whole life. Athena Chase lived for surgery, and now she was barely fifty and had Alzheimer’s. Now she would never get to live out her dream to its fullest. Sure, she had already won many major awards, but her mother wanted more. Athena Chase always wanted more. Annabeth supposes she takes after her mother in that sense.

Right then and there, Annabeth decided that she was going to do it for her mother. Annabeth would become a doctor, work her way to perfection. It wasn’t going to be easy, but Annabeth was going to do it. She was sure of it. Whether Annabeth had it in her to be a doctor or not, she would force herself to do it. That mentality got herself through college and medical school, and it would get her through her residency, too.

Her mother never got to fulfill her life’s dream, so it was up to Annabeth. Annabeth was the next step for her mother. No matter what life threw her way, and she’s sure there will be plenty, she was going to rise above. She will always rise above. She is going to make her mom proud. She is going to make a _difference._

_She is going to be a surgeon._


	2. Chapter 2

Annabeth groaned, slapping her nightstand aggressively in search for the phone going off by her head. After a few more graceful slaps of wood, she managed to hit her phone and send it flying off of the nightstand.

Despite the phone going for a flight, it continued to ring. Annabeth leaned off the bed, nearly falling off headfirst, while trying not to rattle the bed too much in worries of waking Percy who was sound asleep beside her. She clasped onto the phone, and the caller ID read _Nursing Home._

Rolling her eyes, she leaned back onto the bed, banging her head on the side of the nightstand on her way up and sliding the answer bar open while bringing it to her ear.

“Hello?” she asked, annoyed.

_“Hi, Dr. Chase. This is Ms. Henry from the nursing home I’m calling about your mother.”_

That woke Annabeth up. “Is my mother okay?”

_“Oh, she’s absolutely fine. I was just calling to–”_

Annabeth interrupted. “If it’s nothing important, can I call you back later?”

_“Oh, well, actually…”_

“I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Without any salutations, she hung up and promptly sent the phone for a second ride across the room.

Percy turned over on the bed, his eyes still closed and himself still half asleep. “Who calls this early in the morning?” he asked, his voice still raspy.

Annabeth lifted the side of her mouth in humor. “Wrong number.”

Percy leaned forwards to wrap his arm around her torso and pull her against his naked chest. “Let’s go back to sleep.”

Annabeth sighed, resting her hand on top of his where it had curled around her much smaller figure. “I have to get to the hospital.”

“No. Sleep.”

“I don’t have the _privilege_ of sleeping. You’re an attending, I’m not.” 

She moved her hand from his to rub her face tiredly. This residency was going to be the end of her, really. This whole intern-attending thing was getting out of hand. She’s having to fight tooth and nail just to survive her intern year, and most likely more years to come.

Ever since that night at the party Silena threw where La Rue had caught Percy and Annabeth losing clothes in a car, it seemed Annabeth was jumping through endless hoops for her. Getting caught sleeping with an attending by her resident boss was probably going to be the end of her. No, it was _definitely_ going to be the end of her. Even her friends, and her now roommates who had seen him doing the walk of shame, were giving her hell for it.

Annabeth direly wanted to go back to sleep in Percy’s warm, broad arms, but unfortunately, she had to get to the hospital before rounds. She dragged herself up from the cushioned mattress, ignoring Percy’s groans of protest.

She hissed at the cold feeling of the hardwood floor as she dropped her feet over the edge of the bed, immediately stopping to pull her Dartmouth sweater that had been by Percy’s socked feet on over her messy-haired head.

She took one last look at Percy before opening the door of her room. The second she did so, she _seriously_ regretted her decision of getting up. More than that, her decision to become a surgeon because had it not been for that, Annabeth wouldn’t have been rooming with these idiots in the first place.

Silena stumbled backwards with a surprised _oh_ , having been leaning against Annabeth’s door that was opposite of the bathroom.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Annabeth asked, eyeing a flushed, shirtless Leo and haughty Silena suspiciously.

Leo slapped a hand over Silena’s mouth before she could respond. She licked his hand, and he protested in disgust.

“Nothing!” 

Silena looked back and forth between Annabeth and Leo, eyes sparkling but staying silent until Leo removed his salivated hand. Once Leo was confident Silena would stay silent, he tried to race off to his room.

Silena did not stay silent as he had hoped.

“He’s embarrassed I caught him playing with Little Jimmy and the twins,” Silena told Annabeth suggestively.

Annabeth’s mouth dropped open. “You _what?_ ”

Leo spun around, pointing threateningly at the two girls. “I don’t _do_ that. I have a girlfriend!”

“Is this girlfriend imaginary?” Silena snickered.

“No!”

Annabeth’s body convulsed as she held back hysterics, eyes shifting towards Leo whose face was flushed. “Don’t be embarrassed, Leo. Lots of people do it.”

Leo got redder, if that was even possible. “I was not doing what you think I was doing!”

Silena leaned her head onto Annabeth’s left shoulder. The two girls nodded mockingly, and Annabeth was sticking her lip out in mock sympathy.

Leo sighed, defeated. “I’m moving out.”

Annabeth called out after Leo who had already ran off to his room and slammed the door shut. “It’s not a big deal!”  
  
“Moving out!” Leo confirmed, his words muffled by the wooden door.

Annabeth rolled her eyes and Silena strode into the now unoccupied bathroom.

Percy emerged from the room, buttoning up his blue shirt. “What’s going on out here?”

Annabeth shrugged, crossing her arms as Percy gently moved her head towards him to kiss her temple. His phone started going off, and Percy stepped away to take one look at it before declining it.

Annabeth furrowed her brows. “Are you not going to get that? It could be the hospital.”

He shook his head, continuing to button his shirt up. “It’s definitely not. Breakfast?”

Percy stalked away before Annabeth could even question him. He’d been acting a bit odd recently. Whatever it was, Annabeth just hoped it ended soon.

* * *

Annabeth found herself wandering the hospital looking for a familiar face. It hadn’t been the most exciting day so far, and Annabeth really just wanted someone to talk to while she waited to be paged for anything, really.

Annabeth shivered, the white lab coat she was wearing doing absolutely nothing to protect from the cold air of the hospital environment. She really needed to remember to wear long sleeves under her scrubs next time.

She rounded a corner and was met with Piper talking in an angry, hushed voice to someone on the phone.

“I don’t need to talk about my options, I know what they are!” Piper looked up and held a finger up to Annabeth. “No. _Goodbye._ ” With a sharp click, Piper hung up the phone and shoved it into her white coat’s pocket.

“Everything okay?” Annabeth asked as she escorts herself to Piper’s side, keeping her voice low.

Piper sighed, dropping her face to her hands. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“You have to tell Grace.”

“I know that, but there isn’t really a good way to do that. What, am I just going to walk up and be all like ‘Hey Grace, I’m pregnant with your baby but I’m getting an abortion and you have no say in the matter,’ because that sounds like a great way to lose your boyfriend.”

Annabeth held up her hands as though to say _just saying_. “He’s an attending, you have to tell him one way or another.”

“Oh, don’t talk to me about screwing attendings. You started the trend,” Piper pointed out.

“When did I say anything about screwing attendings?”

Piper shrugged, biting her lip.

Annabeth was about ready to smack Piper for the rude and insinuating remark, but Grace was nearing the duo.

“Dr. McLean,” Grace said, nodding his head politely as his eyes lingered on her. “Dr. Chase.”

Annabeth nodded back, eyes shooting a message over to Piper. “I’m just gonna go…” she said, pointing a thumb over her shoulder in a random general direction. When Grace wasn’t looking, Annabeth mouthed a pointed _tell him!_ Piper narrowed her eyes.

Annabeth smiled sweetly and went off to find something to do with her life. _Oo, maybe I could steal a surgery_.

* * *

Leo hurried into the interns’ locker room, having spotted Charles inside from across the hall. He slammed the door shut and leaned against it anxiously, startling Charles who had been preoccupied reading a piece of paper.

“Do you need something?” Charles prompted, waving the paper he’d been occupied with around exasperatedly.

“I, uh…” Leo stammered around for words, and Charles rolled his eyes.

“Dude, you’re acting dumber than usual. _What?”_

Leo didn’t respond, and instead he moved around the room to make sure no one else was in there with them. Charles went back to reading his paper.

After Leo was satisfied that no one else was in the room and listening, he sat down next to Charles, close enough to smell the shampoo he had used.

Charles scooted his body away from Leo hesitantly. “I know you’re probably not from planet Earth, but here we like personal space, so back up.”

“I need to ask you something.”

Charles gave his attention to Leo, who now stayed silent.

Charles’ eyes subtly rolled. “I’m waiting.”

“Oh, right. Well, I seem to have something going on. Something skin related, kind of like a rash. I think I might know what it is, but I wanted to make sure…”

Charles stood up from the bench. “Let’s see it.”

“It’s kind of in a personal… spot.” Leo said, making a general hand movement towards below his bellybutton.

Charles dropped the paper to the bench and motioned for Leo to get closer.

“You’re a doctor, Leo. It’s called a penis. Do you have a rash on your penis?”

Leo was wide-eyed and ashamed. “Yes.”

Charles made an I’m waiting signal, and Leo bit his lip.

“I can describe it for you?” Leo offered.

“Dude, just drop your pants and flash me your penis so we can both be done with this already.”

Leo’s jaw dropped. He made sure no one else was in the room before untying his scrub bottoms and dropping his pants and underwear to the floor. Charles bent down, and Leo’s felt his face flare up. Charles stared at the rash and made disapproving sounds that made Leo about ready to kick his ass.

After what seemed like an eternity, Charles stood back up. “You have syphilis.”

Charles patted Leo on the shoulder, and Leo was absolutely mortified.

“Enjoy your spyh’, dude.”

Once Charles’ obnoxious presence was gone, Leo approached a mirror that was mounted on the wall to look up close at the painful rash himself. Someone slammed the door behind him open and Leo stumbled to pull his pants back up, praying that whoever it was hadn’t seen him, and if they had, he prayed it wasn’t Annabeth. Somehow, he managed to walk out of the room with what was left of his dignity.

* * *

Annabeth was watching Dr. Apollo intently, holding a retractor for him while he attempted to set a clamp. Holding a retractor wasn’t much, but for an intern it was everything. She actually gets to go into the OR quite often, and it further fueled her want to be a surgeon.

Dr. Apollo grew frustrated when he wasn’t able to place the clamp after the fifth attempt. Annabeth’s brows furrowed in concern, wondering what was going on with him.

Another failed attempt caused Apollo to yell. “Damn it!”

La Rue looked up towards him, and then made eye contact with Annabeth.

“Someone get me another clamp. And someone fix these damn lights in here!”

Annabeth’s gloved hand reached up to grab the lights and move it closer to the open body cavity for him.

“Is that better, Dr. Apollo?” Annabeth asked.

He exhaled to try and calm himself. “Yes, Dr. Chase. Thank you.”

Annabeth nodded wordlessly, moving her hands back to the retractor. She looked up into the gallery, and she saw Percy watching Apollo with a face of concern. Once he caught Annabeth watching him, they shared a look of confusion. Something wasn’t quite right here.

“Hand me a bigger retractor,” Apollo told a scrub nurse.

The nurse handed the retractor to Apollo, but when he went to grab it, it fell to the floor instead, clattering noisily. He clenched his fist like he was about to bash someone’s skull in. Everyone knew he could.

“I’m sorry, doctor.”

Apollo sighed. “It wasn’t you.”

“Dr. La Rue, you can finish this up for me.” Apollo took a step away from the table reluctantly.

Her eyes flew open, and she stammered for words. “Uh, thank you, chief. I appreciate the opportunity.”

He didn’t respond with more than a shoulder shrug. Instead, Apollo peeled his gloves off of his hands, tossing them into the medical waste bin along with his surgical gown.

Annabeth’s eyes followed him, trying to wrap her head around what was going on. It seemed like everyone in the room was confused.

When Annabeth looked back into the gallery, Percy was nowhere to be found.

* * *

“Mr. Franklin. How long has your abdomen been like this?” Piper asked, her gloved hands pressing experimentally on his distended stomach.

“It’s been growing for a while.”

His wife chewed on her nails nervously. “I told him something was wrong.”

“Everyone told him that, mom.” Franklin’s daughter was leaning against the wall, uninterested.

Mrs. Franklin ignored her daughter’s jab. “It’s not normal to put on weight this fast, is it?”

Silena looked up from Piper’s hands, unsure of an exact answer. “We’re going to have to admit him and run some more tests. We can’t be sure what’s going on, or if it’s dangerous, until we do more tests.”

The daughter groaned, dropping her head back in annoyance. “ _Great._ What’s it going to cost this time?”

 _“Alice,”_ Mrs. Franklin warned. She looked at Piper pleadingly. “Do whatever you have to.”

* * *

Leo raced towards the lab to pick up his own bloodwork before someone else saw it. He thinks he would actually die if someone found out that he had syphilis. And if someone found out, it would likely get back to Annabeth, and that was the last thing he needed. Annabeth could not find out about his trysts with another woman; that would only destroy his chances with her more than they already were destroyed.

“Leo Valdez,” he told the lab technician. “I need Leo Valdez’s results.”

The doctor shuffled through a pile of papers. “I’m sorry, I don’t see any results. What was the name?”

“Valdez, Leo!” he screamed, his patience thin, which gave him a few odd looks from the surrounding physicians and patients. He lowered his voice. “It’s a simple blood test.”

The lab technician grabbed the paper and handed it to Leo, appalled at Leo’s blatant disrespect.

Leo held the paper up awkwardly. “Thank you…”

He moved a few feet away from the physician’s judging eyes before analyzing the results. His eyes roamed the paper for what he needed, and… he tested positive for syphilis.

“Great,” he hissed, slamming the paper against the table he was leaning against.

As if his day couldn’t get any worse, Silena walked through the open elevator carrying a specimen sample.

“I need these results back ASAP,” she told the same lab technician, who snatched it from her angrily. She looked surprised, but just ignored him and took a sip of her coffee, turning around to leave. That’s when she caught sight of Leo.

“Hey! What do you got?” she asked, grabbing the papers off of the counter before Leo could protest.

“Give me that back!”

Silena moved the paper away from his short frame and kept reading. “Syphilis? That’s not surgical. Who has syphilis?”

Leo wrapped his hand around her forearm and pulled her into an empty room, making her coffee almost slosh out the sides and Silena snap at him.

“Where are we going?” Silena turned around after Leo shoved her into the room in front of him, and then slammed the door behind him.

“You have _syphilis_?” she exclaimed loudly, and once again, people on the floor turned their attention to them, even with them talking throw the walls of another room.

 _“Shut up!”_ Leo stressed, moving to close the blinds of the room.

Silena watched him check the room for ways people could overhear, his movements frantic, waiting for him to be done.

“Now that you’re done throwing a tantrum,” she said pointedly. “You have syphilis?”

“I don’t know how this happened.”

Silena raised her eyebrows and blew air from between her lips. “Wow. Your little girlfriend Gwen must really be getting around, that’s how this happened.”

“She is not like that!” Leo defended.

“Oh, please. She’s a nurse. _Of course_ she’s like that.”

“She’s classy! She does not sleep with everyone!”

“You got syphilis somehow.”

Leo sniffed indignantly. “Maybe _I_ was sleeping around.”

Silena blew a raspberry in his face.

“Shut up!” Leo repeated.

“You talk like anyone would ever sleep with you. You’re baby.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Neither does you getting laid and contracting syphilis, yet here we are.” Silena raised her coffee in kudos.

“Asshole.” 

“Baby.” 

“Shut up!” Leo paced around the small room and then stopped dead in his tracks. “Don’t tell Annabeth.”

“Why? You scared she won’t want your babies if she finds out you got syphilis?”

“Silena, _please_.”

“Oh, don’t get all maudlin on me. I won’t tell her.”

“You’re a contumelious person.”

“Do you want me to tell her, then? Because keep talking to me like that and I will.”

“What do I do?” he pleaded.

Silena sighed, setting her coffee down. “It’s not a big deal. A few shots of penicillin, and you’re good to go.”

“What about Gwen?”

“I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t fucking sleep with her anymore. That is, unless you enjoy the wonderful shade of red your penis probably is.”

“Stop talking trash about Gwen!”

“Okay, are you in love with Annabeth or Gwen? I can tell you right now that you gotta pick or you’ll get neither, that’s for sure.”

Leo shot her a deadly look.

“Okay, _fine_. You have to tell her she gave it to you.”

“She didn’t give it to me!”

“ _Right,_ she was a virgin when you met,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You still have to tell her to go get tested.”

“And how do you suppose I do that? ‘Hey, Gwen. I got syphilis, and you probably do too. Twinsies!’”

Silena snorted and choked on her coffee she began drinking again. “Maybe not _quite_ like that.”

“Thanks a lot. I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“Wrong. Goodbye.”

Silena grabbed him by his lab coat, but he smacked her hands off and stormed off to find go find Gwen.

* * *

“We need to talk,” Leo whispered into Gwen’s ear.

“Leo,” Gwen said chirpily, turning around to be face to face. “What is it?”

“Can we go someplace quiet?”

Gwen’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I see.”

Leo tried to avoid her suggestive eyes, and instead he grabbed her hand and led her through the maze of doctors and patients towards the hopefully empty stairwell. Once he pushed open the door, he pulled Gwen inside and swung it closed again.

The second Leo turned around, Gwen forced herself on him, her lips locking onto his. Leo was taken by surprise and let her kiss him for a few more seconds before remembering what he was actually here to do.

Leo pushed Gwen away, their lips detaching with an awkward pop.

Gwen looked confused. “I thought you wanted to…”

“I do!” Leo reassured. “But I just had to talk to you first.”

She held up a finger. “Hold on. Are you breaking up with me?”

“What? _No_!”

She crossed her arms in defense. “Then what are you saying?”

“I’m just saying… I had fun the other night. I really did.”

Gwen nodded, lips hinting at a smile but confusion still present on her face.

“It’s just that… I don’t sleep with a lot of people You’re the first that I’ve been with in a long time. That being said, I don’t mind if you’ve been with a lot of people, or anything. You’re pretty. Very pretty.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not following here,” Gwen told him.

Leo exhaled nervously and continued with his short speech. “You’re pretty, of course you’ve slept with a lot of guys. I mean, not a lot, you’re not a hooker, or anything…”

“A hooker?” Gwen looked appalled.

“No! Not a hooker! You’re the farthest thing from a hooker, or a prostitute.”

“A _prostitute?”_

“No! I’m trying to say…”

Gwen rubbed her hands along Leo’s arms, a hint of reluctance with it. “Breathe, Leo. Just breathe.”

Leo closed his eyes for a second. “I really like you, and I want to be with you again. It’s just that… I have syphilis.”

Gwen pulled her arms away like she’d been shocked, which in her defense, she kind of was. She stared at him for a few seconds as though he was a stranger, before she turned and walked away from Leo without a second glace. Talk about _awkward._

Once the door shut behind her, Leo banged his head against a wall.

_“Great.”_

* * *

“Mr. Franklin,” Piper called out, knocking on the door to his room before opening it. She entered further into his room, closing the door behind her and Silena. “You have a condition called ascites.” 

“Is that bad?” Mrs. Franklin asked, exiting the bathroom with a cup of water in her hands.

Silena, who had been writing something in his charts, looked up. “It just means that there’s fluid in the peritoneal cavity.” She glanced at Alice, remembering a snide remark she’d made about speaking English. “Or the abdomen.”

Piper nodded. “It’s pressing up against your lungs which is probably why you can’t breathe. It seems to be linked to liver disease.”

Alice scoffed from her position on a chair with a magazine in her hands. “It all comes together.”

“Alice, please don’t do this right now,” Mrs. Franklin begged.

Piper glanced back and forth between them. “Is there something we should know?”

Mr. Franklin leaned his head back and grunted. “I drink a little…”

“Understatement,” Alice muttered under her breath.

Mr. Franklin clenched his fist and shook in anger. “Enough out of you!”

Alice shoved the magazine shut. “I’m only here for mom, to make sure you don’t pull any of your usual crap.”

Piper twiddled her thumbs, not sure if she should speak. “Well, we need to take some of the fluid out so we’re going to come have a nurse prep you for a paracentesis in a little bit.”

Mr. Franklin coughed. “Okay. Thank you, doctors.”

Piper squinted her eyes and scrunched her nose in a smile. “Our pleasure.”

* * *

About an hour later, Piper and Silena were starting to regret deciding to do the paracentesis by themselves. When they ran it by La Rue, they had lied and said they’d seen one before, but they most definitely hadn’t.

When they were staring Mr. Franklin’s fluid filled belly in the face, Piper realized that they probably shouldn’t have lied, but it was too late. Now they _had_ to do one, or La Rue would find a way to actually choke them with their own untruthful words.

“Okay, Mr. Franklin. We’re going to just inject a local anesthetic into the abdomen. You should start feeling numb immediately.” Piper took the elongated needle and, efficiently sterilizing the injection site, she slid it into his skin.

“Is that numb?” Silena asked him.

“Can’t feel a thing,” he said, old voice wobbly.

“Okay, good. Silena, grab the skin.”

Silena grabbed the surrounding skin of his stomach and held it still while Piper forced the larger needle through the tissue.

“I’m in the peritoneal.” Piper started filling the syringe. She did a doubletake when she saw the red tint of the fluid. 

“It’s bloody. Is it supposed to be bloody?” Silena asked Piper, rather loudly.

The patient’s eyes widened slightly. “You have done this before, right?”

Piper shot Silena a look. “Oh, we’ve done this millions of times. You’re in good hands.”

Piper attached the syringe to the suction line and waited a few seconds until the bloody fluid being sucked out of his body was replaced by a clearer liquid.

“Now all we have to do is wait.”

Silena looked at Piper and tried to make conversation. “Can you believe this whole syph’ outbreak we have going on? Who’s dumb enough to sleep with hospital personnel?” She laughed. “Besides Annabeth, of course.”

Piper’s eyes widened when Silena wasn’t looking. Silena found out about Percy and Annabeth; it’s a miracle that she still didn’t know about her and Grace.

“It’s a bit insane, don’t you think?” Silena proposed.

“I think this is just one big maelstrom of a hospital.”

“Right?” Silena inhaled slowly. “Today has just been something different. I can’t even describe it.”

“Mhm.” Piper tapped the suction line. “Turn up the rate of flow for the tube. There’s a lot in there.”

Silena listened to Piper, turning the suction up a notch.

Piper wheezed in surprise, and a little bit of disgust, as a bag of fluid was filled already. She moved to change the bag and handed it to Silena when she was done. “How much fluid can one body even hold?”

“Piper!” Silena’s mouth dropped. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Franklin. There _is_ a lot a fluid, but we’re almost done.”

Silena set the bag of fluid that Piper handed to her down. She looked at Mr. Franklin’s face. “Mr. Franklin. Are you sleeping?” Silena shook his shoulder, and then again when she got no response.

Silena put her fingers against where his carotid artery should’ve been pulsing. “There’s no pulse!”

Piper tensed. “ _What?”_

“He has no pulse!”

Piper wasted no time, leaping halfway across the room to reach for the code blue button. Silena slammed her fist down over his heart in a failedattempt to get it to start again on its own.

A code blue announcement rang out over the PA. Nurses flooded into the room, and Piper grabbed the crash cart, taking out the paddles and having a nurse cover them with gel.

“Charge to 200.”

* * *

Percy knocked on the door to the chief’s office, waiting a few seconds before opening the door and entering anyways.

Percy found Apollo sitting in a spinney chair, leaning his elbows against his desk with his head down. Apollo lifted his head at Percy’s entrance.

“You dropped a retractor.”

“I did.”

“You’re the chief. You don’t drop retractors.”

“I know.”

Percy shut the door behind him and entered further into the room. “What’s going on?”

Apollo settled into his chair and crossed his arms, defeated. “A few weeks ago, while I was in the OR, my vision went dark in my right eye. It went away, but it came back a few days ago.”

“Did you have it checked out?”

He nodded. “They found nothing. Everything was completely ordinary. They think it’s my age, but I think we both know better.”

“I’m going to set up some tests,” Percy declared.

“Jackson...”

“You have the country’s best neurosurgeon at your hospital, and you didn’t ask my help.”

“I didn’t want this getting around.”

“I’ll assemble a team. No one has to know; it’ll be a secret and I’ll be in and out if this is what I think it is.”

Apollo heaved a breath. “I think we both know that it is.”

* * *

Leo somehow managed to make it to lunch without dying of embarrassment. It seemed like everyone in the hospital was bruiting about him, but he just told himself that it was all in his head. It didn’t work.

“Do you think she’s talking about me?” Leo asked Charles nervously.

“She is most _certainly_ talking about you.”

Leo’s head snapped towards him. “She is?”

“The whole hospital is talking about you.”

Leo looked ready to cry. He pushed ahead of Charles and made his way towards where Silena and Piper were sitting.

“Hey, Dr. Syphilis,” Piper said, taking a sip of her juice innocently.

Leo slammed his lunch down and addressed Silena. “You told her?”

Silena had the decency to look slightly guilty. “Only Piper, I swear.”

Leo sank down into a seat, slamming his head onto the table and groaning. “I am actually going to die.”

Silena patted his head with empathy. “There, there.”

Leo continued to mope which caused him to not see Annabeth’s form approaching.

“Hey, Leo,” Annabeth said softly, sliding down into an empty seat. “How you feeling? I heard about the syphilis.”

Leo choked on air, lifting his head. “You know?”

“The whole hospital knows. Plus, Piper told me.”

Leo threw his bottle of juice at Piper. Piper opened it and took a sip.

Charles shoved some fries into his mouth. “It’s not the end of the world. Now, everyone thinks you’re a player.”

“I’m not!”

“You are now. Besides, everyone has a secret to be revealed. Luckily for you, now yours can’t be revealed anymore.”

Leo mouthed _I’m going to kill you._

Piper looked intrigued at Charles’ words. “What’s your secret, evil spawn?”

“I’ll show you my secret if you show me yours. You have got to have a lot of dirty secrets behind that put together façade.”

Annabeth raised an eyebrow, watching all of this unfold.

Grace walked by the table, and it was really appropriate timing. Piper’s eyes followed him.

“My secrets are just that– secrets.” Piper huffed.

Silena decided to pitch in. “I have no secrets. I’m an open book.”

“Oh, please. Everyone has something to hide,” Annabeth said passively, reaching for a French fry.

Everyone looked at Annabeth, surprised. She wasn’t one to pipe into the group’s conversation. She looked around the table at everyone who was watching her silently and wondering what her secret could’ve possibly been.

Annabeth shrugged and grabbed another fry.

* * *

“I don’t want to do this.”

Charles grabbed Leo’s scrubs and pulled him backwards before he had a chance to escape. “Just drop your pants before I shove this syringe in your carotid artery.”

Leo winced at his words, eyeing the syringe with a dose of penicillin. “I _really_ don’t want to do this.”

“Would you prefer the subclavian? Either works.” 

“You know what I mean. I don’t want to do _this_.”

“Do you want syphilis or not? Drop ‘em.”

Leo dragged his feet towards the hospital bed and pulled his pants and underwear down at work for the second time that day. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Believe it.”

Charles pulled on some gloves and Leo was left waiting with his bare ass sticking out towards him. Leo was never going to live this down. He didn’t think life could get much worse.

Newsflash: it could.

Annabeth yanked open the curtains that had been concealing Leo from the rest of the hospital, and she was met with Leo’s mouth dropped open in disbelief.

“Annabeth! Get out!”

“I figured you could use some moral support.” Annabeth made her way to Charles’ side, leaving Leo to grab the curtains and pull them closed again.

“I am vulnerable here! I am naked with my junk for the world to see!”

Annabeth snagged a glance at his rash. “Oh Leo, it’s not a big deal. I’m a doctor, and besides, you have a cute butt.”

“I have a cute butt, too. Wanna take a look?” Charles asked Annabeth.

“Oh, get out. You’re doing it all wrong,” Annabeth criticized, grabbing and pulling on some gloves from a random box.

“Be my guest,” Charles said, handing the supplies to Annabeth.

“Wha– Charles!” Leo screeched.

“You’ll be _fine_. Have fun.”

Leo desperately tried to get Charles not to leave him and Annabeth alone, but it was fruitless because he was already long gone.

Annabeth grabbed an alcohol wipe and ripped it open. She rubbed the square on the skin where he was about to receive a few painful shots to his junk. Leo contemplated jabbing the needle into his carotid by himself. Or subclavian.

The curtains slid back open.

“Silena!” Leo yelled at her, to which she smiled like the Cheshire Cat.

“Oo, what are we doing here?”

“Making Leo want to die,” he told her.

“Giving Leo a shot of penicillin for his syphilis,” Annabeth corrected, pulling the safety tip off of the needle. She swiftly slid the needle in and then right back out.

Leo winced. “I hate needles.”

“Good thing you’re a doctor then,” Annabeth replied. “Come on, other side.”

Leo begrudgingly turned at Annabeth’s command.

“Silena?” Piper called from outside the curtain.

“Yeah?” Silena called back.

Leo shot his hands out to grab the curtain before Piper pulled them open but, _shockingly_ , he didn’t make it.

“Mr. Franklin’s procedure is scheduled for a few hours from now,” Piper said while pulling the curtains open. “Oh, what are we doing?” she went off in a tangent.

“Saving Leo from a future of sores and eternal loneliness.”

“Sounds fun.” Piper moved to Annabeth’s side. “Cute butt.”

“That’s what I said,” Annabeth told her.

“I hate all of you,” Leo seethed.

“We’re helping you,” Annabeth said, giving him the last shot.

The second she put the syringe down, Leo pulled his pants back up. “You’re enjoying my embarrassment. I’ve always wanted to be in a room with three women while half naked, but somehow, this is not what I imagined.”

Annabeth pulled off her gloves and threw them away, watching as Leo simpered off like a puppy that had been kicked. She laughed along with the other girls.

“I think he’s going to _cry_ ,” Piper said, guffawing loudly.

* * *

Annabeth pulled her ringing phone out of her coat’s pocket, opening it without checking the caller ID.

“Hello?” she asked, wandering aimlessly around the hospital halls.

_“Hi, Dr. Chase. This is Ms. Henry. Is this a better time?”_

“Oh, yeah. I’m sorry about this morning; I wasn’t alone. What were you calling about?”

_“I just wanted to remind you about our monthly family dinner. It’s tonight, and we were really hoping you could come. You haven’t been to any family events.”_

“I’m sorry, but I’m a surgical intern, so I barely have time to breathe, let alone go out of my way to make it to a family function.”

_“Our residents usually respond positively to these events. They truly enjoy themselves, and I think your mother would love for you to come see her.”_

Annabeth ran her fingers through her unruly curls. “I’ll do my best. I can’t promise anything.”

Just then, an announcement went off overhead. _All hospital personnel to first floor conference room._

“Listen, I have to go. I’ll try to be there.”

_“Dr. Chase–”_

Annabeth hung up and let out a sigh of relief. Even thinking about her mother managed to frustrate her beyond belief. She didn’t have time to visit her mom, and even if she did, she wasn’t sure that she actually wanted to visit her mom.

If Annabeth was to go, she probably would’ve ended up with her mom screaming at her about how she wasn’t cut out for medical school, forgetting the millions of previous times she did so. That was the _last_ thing Annabeth needed to hear during her intern year.

Annabeth took a deep breath, calming herself down. Shoving her phone back into her pocket, she took off to the first floor to see why everyone was being called over. Maybe something fun was happening, like a mass casualty.

* * *

“Three interns, four residents, and six nurses have contracted syphilis.” Dr. Apollo walked across the room, his hands laced behind his back. “We’re a room full of doctors and nurses, so we all know the symptoms of syphilis, but let me remind you anyways since you all clearly didn’t know the importance of safe sex. Syphilis can lead to blindness, insanity, and death if it is not treated appropriately.”

“We can’t have an entire hospital staff contract syphilis, so if you have been having unprotected sexual intercourse with another member of the staff, you are to get tested. This is not a request; this is an order.” Apollo hesitated. “We will now have Patricia give a safe sex demonstration.”

The room broke out into laughter, and Annabeth pressed her forehead into Piper’s shoulder.

“This can’t actually be happening.”

Piper was shaking with laughter, tears lining her eyes. “Oh, it is. She really whipped out a banana and all.”

“Dear god, I can’t even look.” Annabeth groaned. “Poor Leo.”

“Yeah, he really had a thing for Typhoid Mary.”

Annabeth shot her a look.

“Patient Zero?”

“Don’t let Leo hear you saying that.” Annabeth paused. “Do you think we can leave?”

“We can try, but Apollo and Jackson are standing by the door, so we won’t make it very far. That is, unless you’re also sleeping with the chief?”

“One, that’s disgusting. Never say that again,” Annabeth started, lifting her head and glancing towards the door. “And two, there’s no one by the door.”

Piper snapped around. “Okay, I swear they were _just_ there.”

“I’m sure.”

Piper smacked Annabeth upside the head.

“Ow!”

“Maybe you’ll have a neuro problem now and get to go cuddle up with your boyfriend.”

“I love how you’re making fun of _me_ for dating an attending. Hypocrite.”

“Oh, I reckon that you won’t be dating an attending for long once the chief finds out.”

“I stand by my previous statement. _Hypocrite_.”

Piper’s lip curled into a smirk. “Want to get out of here? Patricia looks like she’s getting a bit too into this demonstration.”

“Yes, please.”

Piper and Annabeth slid out of their seats and tried to walk out of the room as inconspicuously as possible. They probably looked like morons, but they made it out without La Rue noticing, so who cares, right?

* * *

Percy and Apollo had managed to slide out of the conference room while no one was looking. The two walked down to MRI to get a scan of Apollo’s head.

They were sitting anxiously around the computer waiting for the scans to load and reveal if their suspicions were right.

The scans finally loaded and pulled up on the screen, and Percy breathed a sigh of defeat.

“There it is,” Percy said, pointing to a large lump on the scan. “It’s a tumor and it’s right up against your optic nerve which is why your vision is in and out.”

Apollo leaned closer to the scan, eyeing the margins of the tumor. “Is it operable?”

“Oh, for sure. I should be able to get it all, but like any surgery, there are major risks.”

“I could lose my sight.”

Percy nodded, crossing his arms in concentration.

“Impeccable timing, don’t you think? A syphilis epidemic and tumor. It’s like a one-two combination punch.”

“Well, I could be wrong, but I’d guess that they’re mutually exclusive,” Percy joked.

“Hilarious.” Apollo sat back from the scans. “I suppose it’s time we test your limits and see how good of a surgeon you really are.”

Percy smothered a cough into his fist. “I’ll put together a team for you.”

“Only people I trust,” he demanded. “This still can’t get out.”

“It won’t.”

“Good.” Apollo took a look around. “Well, I guess I’ll be around until it’s time.”

Apollo nodded at Percy and then made to leave, almost getting smacked by the door that swung towards him as Annabeth entered the room.

Annabeth had been smiling but smothered the smile at the chief’s suspicious face. She innocently held the door open for the chief who walked out, and then moved towards Percy who had just picked up the phone.

“You paged?” she asked him.

Percy looked up at her. “Yeah, I need your help with something for the chief. Can you keep a secret?”

Annabeth opened her mouth. “Better than you’d think I can.”

Percy set the phone down, its purpose left unaccomplished, and walked towards her, pulling her closer by the waist. “Good.”

Annabeth smiled, and he leaned in to give her a quick kiss once he was sure no one was watching.

“Let’s go,” Percy said, pulling her along with him and filling her in on everything about the tumor situation.

* * *

“Go,” Percy said, pushing Annabeth towards La Rue.

“You go!” Annabeth retaliated, pushing back against him. “She can kill me because I’m her intern, but she can’t kill you because you’re her attending.” 

“I see your reasoning, but she can’t kill you anyway because she’d go to jail.”

“She’s a surgeon; she’ll make it look like an accident.”

“Syringe of air between the toes, right?”

“Not funny.”

_“Go.”_

Annabeth slapped his hands off of her. “ _Fine.”_

Annabeth took a deep breath walked up the stairs towards La Rue who had her back to Annabeth. Annabeth couldn’t believe that Percy was making Annabeth ask La Rue to help with the secret surgery. He probably just asked for Annabeth to help with the surgery so he didn’t have to face La Rue’s wrath himself. There wasn’t really a reason for Annabeth to get in trouble, but La Rue enjoyed yelling at interns. She was just fun like that.

“Dr. La Rue?” Annabeth prompted.

She didn’t even turn around. “What is it, Chase?”

“I need your help with something. Well, actually, Jackson needs your help with something. And Apollo. You see, there’s a situation, and–”

“Spit it out, Chase.”

“Apollo needs surgery.”

La Rue turned around. “Don’t sugar coat it.”

Annabeth looked unsure of what to do. “He has a brain tumor, and Jackson is going to operate tonight. We need a team to do it.”

La Rue looked at Annabeth like a mother looks at a toddler who’d just done something incredibly stupid, her mouth falling open. “What is an intern like yourself doing on such an important operation?”

“Well, Dr. Jackson asked me to help…”

“Oh, Dr. Jackson, now? Special treatment if I’ve ever seen it.”

Annabeth stayed silent for a moment, looking at Percy who was waiting conspicuously at the bottom of the stairs. “So… can you help?”

La Rue sighed and closed her eyes as though looking for her last strain of patience. “Of course. Tell me about the situation.” 

Annabeth gave Percy a thumbs up from where La Rue wouldn’t see it. Percy took this as his signal that it was safe to come up the stairs, and he ran up the staircase smoothly. Annabeth started explaining the tumor, describing how it was pressing up against the optic nerve, when Percy was suddenly next to both of them, scaring even Annabeth who had literally just watched him start up the stairs.

“How’s our special super-secret silent sunset surgery?” he asked, smiling directly in La Rue’s face.

Annabeth raised an eyebrow.

“What can I say? I’ve been practicing, and also, I like alliteration.”

“You have too much free time,” La Rue told him. She turned to Annabeth. “Tell the chief I’ll be there. Just let me know when. Now, I have to go. I have a patient.”

“Okay,” Annabeth told her, watching her leave.

Percy snickered, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at where La Rue had gone.

Annabeth’s eyes gleamed, taking in Percy’s appearance. She was actually dating a neurosurgeon. A hot one at that. _Wow._

Annabeth scooted in closer to him. “Are you nervous for the surgery?”

Percy wrapped his arm around her waist, and they began walking around the floor they were on. “It’s kind of complicated. I don’t want to be responsible for making the chief blind, or worse. He’s my mentor, and he made me who I am. I guess, no, I’m not nervous,” he said sarcastically.

“Oh, ease up. You’ve done worse tumors.”

“I have. None of them were my teacher’s tumor.”

“Hm.” Annabeth thought for a moment before changing the subject. “Just to be sure… you’d tell me if I needed to get tested, right?”

Percy stopped in his tracks. He looked around and waited for a nurse to pass before he responded in a whisper. _“You think I have syphilis?”_

“No, I don’t. We just never made any official rules, so I don’t know. I wouldn’t blame you, or anything.”

Percy set a hand against the railing, trapping her in front of him. “When would I even have time to go get syphilis? You’re a handful as it is.”

“Hey,” Annabeth said gently, flicking his nose softly.

“Besides, we’re practically a walking condom ad.”

“Don’t remind me. Those glitter ones and glow in the dark has got to stop.”

Percy curled his lips into a teasing smile. “We should make rules.”

“We should.”

Percy let go of her waist and started off in the direction of the elevators. “Just so you know, I like the glowing ones. Provides a sense of adventure, don’t you think?”

Annabeth crinkled her nose jokingly. “You would.”

Percy shook his head at her fondly, and they parted ways.

Percy’s phone started ringing again, and he looked at the caller ID. Once again, he declined it with a frown and continued on with his day.

* * *

Annabeth laid down on a gurney in the empty hospital hallway. She was listening to Piper and Silena complain about how their patient had died while they were emptying his peritoneal cavity of a plethora of fluids.

“And their family didn’t even want an autopsy!” Piper ended wildly.

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Annabeth started. “You two got assigned a guy who was gaining weight, and it turns out it was really just a ton of fluid in his abdomen. La Rue made you take the fluid out, and he died while you were doing it?”

 _“Exactly.”_ Piper confirmed.

“Sounds like you might’ve killed him. That’s a textbook procedure.”

“Uh, excuse me? Obviously, we didn’t kill him! It’s a textbook procedure, so what could we have possibly messed up?”

Silena interjected. “Well, there was some blood in the syringe when we first started drawing out the fluid.”

Annabeth looked pointedly at Piper.

“You’re really not helping my case here, Silena,” Piper said. “Well, La Rue told us we didn’t do anything wrong, _so…”_

“And why doesn’t this family want an autopsy?” Annabeth asked.

“The wife seemed to want one, but the daughter talked her out of it. That daughter was a brat, let me tell you. But they came to the conclusion that it was his excessive drinking that vitiated his body and killed him in the end.”

“Do you think that’s what killed him?”

Piper flopped backwards onto the gurney. “I don’t think so. Something just tells me that it’s more than that.”

“So now you want to perform an unauthorized autopsy on this guy?”

Silena, taking a bite of an apple, ran her fingers through Piper’s hair. “You don’t want to be the new 007. An autopsy would make sure that you didn’t kill him, and boom, you’re not 007.”

Annabeth looked at Silena incredulously. “Piper, no.”

Piper sat back up and leaned against the wall next to the bed. “His wife, though. She wanted to do an autopsy; I can tell.”

Silena nodded in agreement. “She just didn’t want to fight with her daughter. She looked so sad, though.”

“You two are impossible,” Annabeth muttered to herself.

Piper’s eyes fell. “I can’t do an unauthorized autopsy, though. I could lose my medical license.”

Silena shrugged. “Piper McLean. Licensed to kill.”

Piper broke. “Fine, I’m in.”

“Dumbasses,” Annabeth muttered again. She sat up. “I am not a part of this.”

Piper pointed at Annabeth, nearly taking Annabeth’s eye out. Annabeth slapped her hand away.

“You do not talk about this, Annabeth. Silence.”

“Fine.”

Piper started conversing the plan with Silena. “We can’t do it when La Rue is around.” 

Silena chewed a slice of pizza now. “I agree, but she’s everywhere and knows everything.”

Piper pursed her lips. “We have to take our chances, I guess.”

Annabeth hummed. “La Rue is busy from seven to eleven. You’ll be the last thing on her mind.”

Piper went alert. “How do you know that?”

Silena narrowed her eyes. “You know something. Spill.”

Annabeth shrugged, hopping off the gurney. “Can’t say. It’s a secret too.”

* * *

Annabeth stood in the scrub room, rubbing the antiseptic soap over her hands and forearms, and even under her nails. She hummed a song under her breath so that she knew the four minutes necessary for scrubbing was up, and she dried her hands, keeping her arms and elbows up in front of her.

Her scrub cap was already on her head and her hair tucked safely underneath it. Annabeth walked in and the nurses helped her put the surgical gown and gloves on, not that she’d be doing any real cutting.

She stood next to Apollo and was adjusting tubes and making sure everything was ready while Apollo bossed everyone around.

“Okay, everyone, how are we doing?” Percy asked, accosting the table and tightening his ferry boat scrub cap.

Apollo attacked him with a whirlwind of questions. “Is the gallery closed? What did you tell people?”

Percy dropped his hands to the table in front of him. “Don’t worry. No one knows anything.”

Apollo nodded. “Good. Do we have the right dosages of anesthesia and medications? Don’t be stubborn with pain meds; I’m going to need them.”

“You know, doctors are terrible patients. Too bossy,” Percy teased. He grabbed the gassing mask. “Just breathe in the happy gas and stop running my OR.”

Apollo grabbed Percy’s wrist. “Promise me you’ll do good,” he whispered under his breath so no one would hear him.

Percy bent down to his ear. “I got you covered.”

Apollo tried to talk, but he turned sluggish nearly immediately, and he was out cold in less than ten seconds. 

Percy rubbed his hands together. “Alright, people, let me scrub in, and we’ll get started. It’s a beautiful night to save lives.”

* * *

A few hours later, Percy was examining the sutures of Apollo’s head. “The drain is in place, and the staples are fine. Looks like we’re all done here.”

He stepped away from the table. “Dr. La Rue, would you like to wrap everything up here? Nice work, everyone.” Percy took off his gown and gloves, giving Annabeth a sweet smile that wasn’t unnoticed to La Rue, before leaving to tend to another surgery.

Annabeth glanced at the clock. It was still before eleven, so Piper and Silena were most likely still performing the illegal autopsy. She tried to distract La Rue.

“Do you think that the optic nerve is damaged?” she asked La Rue.

La Rue sighed, moving around the emptying OR. “If it is, he’ll let us know.”

“He’ll be blind?” she questioned.

“Mhm.”

“For how long?”

“We won’t know.” La Rue dragged an overhead light away from the table. “Page Piper and Silena. I want them on your patients; I need you to monitor the chief for tonight.”

Annabeth’s heart raced. “Silena and Piper… I think they’re already, uh, swamped.”

La Rue looked confused. “With what? I didn’t give them that much.”

“Labs. They had to check on some labs,” Annabeth said.

La Rue stared blankly and then removed her mask. “Oh, you are _lying_.”

Annabeth shook her head, mocking confusion.

“I know you’re lying. Wanna know how I know? You’re a bad liar! I hate a _bad_ liar.”

“I’m not lying,” Annabeth attempted weakly.

“ _Liar_ ,” she repeated. Just then, something dawned on La Rue. She ripped off her surgical gown. “Take over for me. I know _exactly_ where they are.”

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Annabeth spoke into the phone. “I wanted to be there, but something came up.”

“ _I’m just sorry for your mother.”_

“If my mother were lucid, she would understand. She was a surgeon. She’s done this a million times. Besides, she doesn’t know who I am.”

_“She did today. She was asking for you.”_

Annabeth choked on air. “She what?”

_“Your mother was asking when her daughter was going to get off of work.”_

“Oh…”

Percy snuck up behind Annabeth, and she immediately snapped the phone shut as he grazed her hip with one hand, the other carrying a binder. 

Percy looked at charts he was carrying in a hand. “Lots of secret phone calls today, huh?”

Annabeth stayed silent, looking at the ground. “It’s my mother.”

Percy looked up from his charts. “Oh.”

“My mother isn’t travelling. She’s, uh, I’ve been lying to everyone.”

Percy closed the binder in his hands and brought it down to his side. “Why?”

Annabeth eyes were watering, and she was internally cursing herself. She didn’t want to tell anyone, but when she tells Percy, she breaks apart in seconds? Annabeth knew she was better than that.

“She has Alzheimer’s.”

Percy let out another soft _oh_. “How advanced?”

“Too advanced. She barely remembers who I am. She’s in a home, and no one except me knows.” At this point, Annabeth was just word-vomiting. “No one even knows she’s sick except me, and I don’t think I can do this. It’s just a lot to carry. She wouldn’t want me telling you either, but here I am.”

Annabeth hiccupped.

Percy tilted his head to the side, reaching forward to grab her hand and rub it soothingly with his thumb.

“I’m sorry I’m putting all this on you,” Annabeth said, her voice cracking.

Percy didn’t say anything. He just pulled her in to his side and kissed the top of her blonde head while she cried softly into his navy scrubs.

Unbeknownst to them, the Chief of Surgery was watching the exchange closely from where he had just woken up after his surgery.

* * *

“Don’t even tell me that you’re doing what I think you’re doing!” La Rue stood by the door with her hands on her hips, staring at Piper and Silena.

Piper and Silena stopped in their tracks and looked similar to deer in headlights. “Uh…”

Piper set the autopsy instruments down. “We’re not doing what you think we’re doing.”

La Rue grabbed onto the hair on top of her own head, just about ready to yank it out in stress. “You think being a smartass is a good move here?”

Piper shrank back like she’d been shot. “Not only did you ignore the family’s wishes to not have an autopsy, but you performed an illegal autopsy! You broke the law! You could be arrested and go to jail for assault!”

La Rue gestured towards Silena. “Do you like jail?”

Silena smartly stayed silent.

“You could lose your license. I could lose _my_ license. Did you even stop to think before you ripped this poor man’s body wide open without consent?”

Piper tried to avoid eye contact.

“What do you have to say for yourselves?” La Rue demanded.

Silena reached into a weighing basket and pulled out the cadaver’s heart in response. “Look at his heart.”

La Rue’s rage grinded to a halt. “It’s huge!”

Any other moment, and Piper would’ve made a _that’s what she said_ joke.

“It’s over 600 grams and it’s filled with something grainy,” Piper said instead. “We want to run a few tests.”

“Oh, you want to run tests?” La Rue’s rage returned at once.

“At this point, it wouldn’t hurt anything,” Piper defended.

La Rue was having an internal battle. “Oh, I hate both of you right now. You’re dead to me.”

* * *

Annabeth opened the door to Apollo’s room to perform his hourly checkup. She jumped a little when he started talking.

“Annabeth. He’s an attending. You’re an intern.”

Annabeth paused awkwardly. “You saw that? You can see?”

She walked up to his bedside and shined a flashlight in his eyes to look for pupillary reaction.

“If your mother were here, she’d tell you that you’re making a terrible mistake.”

Annabeth clicked the small flashlight off. “If my mother were here, I’d tell her that it isn’t a mistake.”

“Please, Annabeth. Don’t destroy your future.”

“I’m not.”

“Being with an attending can destroy you in a million different ways. I’ve seen it before, and I don’t want to see it happen to you.” 

“You won’t have to see it happen to me.” She looked at his vitals and tried to change the subject. “How are you feeling?”

“I’d feel a lot better if one of my attendings wasn’t dating an intern.”

Annabeth sighed. “Rest,” she insisted.

Annabeth gave him a last look, and then left the room, closing the door gently behind her.

* * *

“We specifically said no autopsy!” the daughter of Mr. Franklin yelled at La Rue.

“And we apologize deeply. There was a mix up, and the autopsy was performed.”

“No! You know what? We don’t care. We’re getting an attorney,” Alice told La Rue.

Piper interrupted before Alice could stand. “We know what killed him. He had a blood condition known as hemochromatosis where an excess of iron builds up in the body. That caused the heart failure. The paracentesis didn’t kill him; this did.”

Alice was at a loss for words. Her voice softened. “I thought– I thought the drinking is what made him sick.”

“And you never let him forget it. _Or me_ ,” Mrs. Franklin said.

“ _Mom.”_

“That’s not all,” Piper continued. “Hemochromatosis is a genetic disease.”

The atmosphere of the room grew dull and Mrs. Franklin took Alice’s hand. “Do you think Alice has it?”

“A blood test will tell us,” Silena said. “If she does have it, it would be caught early enough to treat it before the disease is critical for Alice.”

“Dr. McLean and Dr. Beauregard may have just saved your life,” La Rue told them. She slid a paper across the table. “If you could just sign this autopsy consent form before we continue on with the tests…”

* * *

Leo was absolutely exhausted, sitting in the intern locker room counting the minutes until he could go home, when the door opened.

Leo lifted his head dejectedly and was met with Gwen standing in front of him carrying her coat in her arms. 

“Leo…” she started. “I just want you to understand something. When we first went out, I had already been seeing someone. When I realized how much I liked you, I broke it off, I really did. It’s just that I guess he gave me, you know, syphilis,” she finished in a whisper.

Leo scoffed, done with this whole situation. “Another guy? After I asked you and you failed to say anything, there’s suddenly another guy?”

“Leo.”

He shook his head and held up a hand to stop her talking. “Who is it?”

Gwen looked up and carefully over Leo’s shoulder. When Leo turned around, his eyes scanned the room, and he realized she was referring to –

Charles.

“You and Charles?” Leo deadpanned.

His brain took a moment to wrap around what she was saying, and once it did, _boy_ was he angry.

“You and _Charles_?”

Without missing a beat, Leo hopped off the bench he was sitting on and ran towards Charles, about to let all hell break loose.

“You gave me _syphilis_!”

_Crack._

* * *

Annabeth sauntered into the lobby of the hospital to meet Percy, carrying her small backpack lazily over one shoulder.

“Hey,” Percy said, standing up and pressing a sweet kiss to her dimpled cheek. “Ready to go?”

Annabeth shrugged. “I’m not sure I have the energy to breathe, let alone walk to the car, but I guess I have to.”

“Hm. I know what you mean,” Percy sympathized. “I heard Beckendorf took a beating today.”

“Oh, yeah. Piper and I walked into the locker room to find Leo beating the hell out of Charles. Leo got a few good swings in.”

_“Interns.”_

“Hey! I’m an intern.” 

“You’re a resident at heart.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Annabeth giggled as Percy planted another kiss on the tip of her nose. “What are we going to go do?”

Percy pulled her tightly against him, squeezing her a bit. “I think a nice dinner and bottle of wine is perfect, don’t you?”

“I most certainly agree.” Annabeth laced their fingers together. “Let’s go.”

Percy squeezed her hand in his, and they started towards the doors. Percy looked away from Annabeth’s giggling face, and he froze.

There was a woman was staring right at him.

“Annabeth, I am so sorry.”

“What?”

The woman approached Percy, resting a hand on her hip.

“ _Rachel_. What are you doing here?”

The woman’s sultry red lips curled up into a smirk. “You’d know if you’d actually returned any of my calls.”

The woman turned towards Annabeth and extended a hand. “Hi. I’m Rachel Jackson.”

Annabeth took the hand, breathing out a laugh nervously.

“ _Jackson_?”

“And you must be the woman who’s been screwing my husband.”


	3. Chapter 3

“I’ll take another shot,” Annabeth slurred, waving down the bartender.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” The bartender raised an eyebrow, but still grabbed an empty shot glass.

“I just found out my boyfriend is married. I’ll take as many shots as I please.”

Annabeth snatched the shot from the bartender’s hands as soon as he set it down on the table and knocked it back. She barely even winced at the burning sensation the tequila left in her throat; she was too many shots in to be able to feel much of anything at all.

Well, there was one thing she could still feel, and that was the pain of her boyfriend being married. Percy really took her home and let her think that they could ever be anything more. Annabeth should’ve known better. Her life was never that easy, after all.

Annabeth tried to imagine an excuse for Percy. Any reason that he would ever do something like that. She never would’ve thought that Percy was someone to cheat on his wife, yet here he was _cheating on his wife_. It just didn’t make sense. It seems that people aren’t always who they appear to be at first glance.

It hurt. It really did. Annabeth was actually happy with Percy, and it took quite a bit of letting herself trust him to get to that point. Now, that trust was long gone, and it didn’t seem like it would be coming back anytime soon.

The bartender slid in front of Annabeth, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Annabeth glared at him.

“I feel like I’ve seen you here before,” he continued cluelessly.

Annabeth slammed the glass that had been nestled in her hand down onto the wooden countertop, thankfully not breaking the glass. Did this guy not get the memo that she didn’t want to talk right now? “You have seen me here, once. That worked out _great_.”

When Annabeth made no move to further continue the conversation, the bartender did. “Come on, humor me.”

“I don’t want to talk. I just want to drown myself in an expensive bottle of tequila.”

The bartender scooted a bottle of tequila away from Annabeth playfully. “I find talking _helps._ You should try it; you’ve got nothing to lose.”

Annabeth leaned forwards to rest her chin on her hands. “No.”

“Fine.” The bartender thought for a second. “Tell me about your boss, then. You’ve gotta have some boss problems to take your mind off of the boyfriend problems.”

“My boyfriend is my boss,” Annabeth said dryly.

“ _Oh…_ ”

“I thought it might be a problem,” Annabeth continued, waving a finger around in a drunken stupor. “But no. The problem is the fact that my boss boyfriend is _married._ ”

The bartender stood in awkward silence for a second before grabbing another shot glass. “This one is on the house. You need it.”

He filled it for Annabeth and then made his way to tend to another couple sitting a few stools away, leaving Annabeth alone with her racing thoughts. She waved a lazy thanks with her hand, grabbing and moving the new glass to her lips. Without a second thought, she downed the burning liquid, praying it would provide her racing mind with a moment of relief.

* * *

Percy scrawled at the lady standing in front of him. Of course, just when his life was starting to look up, she had to come to Seattle and ruin it all in a matter of _seconds_. It’s a talent, really.

“Why are you here, Rachel?”

Instead of gracing him with a response, she reached forwards to caress his face. “Your hair is different.”

Percy slapped her hand away sharply. “Rachel. What are you doing here?”

“You look different.”

“A lot of things are different,” Percy growled, dodging her hand as it came closer to his face again. “What do you want?”

“Your hair is so smooth, and long. I like it, actually. What did you do?”

_“Rachel_.”

“What is it, _dear_?”

_“What are you doing here?”_

“What are _you_ doing here?” Rachel dropped her hand back to her side. “You picked up everything and just left. You can’t just leave your home, your job, your friends, and not to mention, your _wife_ , without any clue as to where you’re going.”

“And yet I did.”

Rachel pouted her lower lip in mock disappointment. “Why, my love?”

“You know why.”

Rachel shifted her feet. “You have a life in Manhattan. You can’t just drop everything and run.”

“ _Had._ ”

“What?”

“I don’t have a life in New York. I _had_ one. It’s gone.”

Rachel pursed her red lips. “And now you have a girlfriend in Seattle.”

“And things were going great until you decided to show up.”

Rachel ignored his statement. “She seems so sweet, really.”

“You’re treading in shark-infested waters,” Percy began, pushing past Rachel and towards the hospital’s exit. “I’d be careful, Rachel.”

“So sweet, and wide-eyed like everything is perfect in the world. She’s still in the ‘ _my boyfriend’s a brain surgeon’_ phase, correct?” Rachel followed Percy’s steps away from her. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? The opposite of me?”

Percy stopped in his tracks, and Rachel almost ran into him. He swung around. “If you came here in some hopeful attempt to fix our marriage, don’t bother. You destroyed our marriage the second you said, ‘ _I do._ ’”

“Well, Percy, that’s exactly what I came here to do. Drink and get you to fall in love with me all over again; make you realize you can’t live without me.”

Percy’s jaw visibly tightened.

“ _Relax_ , Percy. I’m here for a case. You didn’t think you’re the only world class surgeon in this marriage, did you? You were always so self-centered, honey.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Rachel _tsked_ and continued on. “I’m on the T.T.T.S. case admitted last week. Apollo gave me the papers, and I should be –”

Percy cut her off. “Apollo knew you were coming?”

“He asked me to come. Did he not tell you?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Hmm. Well, surprise.” Rachel leaned in close, her rep lips curling into a sultry smile. “Seriously, though, the hair is just, well… I suppose I’ll leave finding out just what I think about your hair for when we work our way into the bedroom.”

Percy stood paralyzed and Rachel pulled away teasingly.

“I’ll see you around, _my darling_.”

* * *

Charles grit his teeth together, his skin pulling painfully around the open cuts lining his face. He moved closer to the mirror, tentatively touching at the oozing wounds. He swears, if this scarred, Leo was going to get the beating of a lifetime.

Silena grabbed his face by the chin, tightening her grip as he tried to escape. “Minor swelling, shallow lacerations.” She let go of his face, not bothering to hide her smile. “Leo got you good.”

Charles scowled. “Leo’s nothing. I could’ve pinned him in a second if I really wanted to.”

“Oh, for sure.” Silena leaned against the lockers. “If you could’ve done it in seconds, then why didn’t you?”

“You’re joking.” Charles leaned back into the mirror to examine his face.

“No, seriously. You’re all high and mighty saying you could’ve beat his ass, but you didn’t, so tell me why.”

“I’m going into plastics. I can’t afford to destroy these babies,” he said, wiggling his fingers. “Or my future on someone like _Valdez_. He’s just not worth it.”

Silena rolled her eyes and pushed herself off of the white lockers. “You had it coming, acting like you’re God around here.”

Charles stood straight and pulled the bathroom door standing next to the mirror open. “He punches like my sister.”

Silena snorted, reaching for the locker room’s door handle. “You’re saying you got beat up by a girl, then?”

He chuckled mockingly before slamming the door shut and cutting him off from Silena’s line of vision.

He could hear Silena laughing all the way out the door and into the halls of the hospital.

* * *

Annabeth was slowly sipping a glass of vodka, switching it up from the tequila, when the bar started cheering at someone’s entrance. She set the drink down and turned her head to see who was at the bar’s entrance, nearly falling off her stool in the process. It appeared to Annabeth that the source of excitement was Leo and Piper entering arm in arm.

“Way to go, Leo!” the bartender shouted, patting him on the back. “Heard you got him in one punch!”

Leo walked over to where Annabeth was sitting, shrugging off his raincoat and setting it onto a bar stool. “I guess, yeah.”

Piper elbowed Leo. “Give yourself some credit.” She turned to the bartender. “It was pretty awesome.”

Leo slid into a seat one away from Annabeth, leaving Piper a spot between them. “It was mortifying. People are still staring at me,” he said lowly to Piper. “Can I have a beer?” he asked someone behind the counter.

Piper waved her hand. “Nonsense! No one’s looking.”

Leo raised an eyebrow and pointed at Annabeth’s form slumped in a seat and staring Leo dead in the eyes. “What do you call that?”

Piper followed his finger and groaned. “I call that drunk,” she replied, snatching the drink from Annabeth’s mouth.

“Hey!” Annabeth complained, reaching out to grab the drink just so she can say she tried. If she’s being honest, there was no way Annabeth could move enough to get her drink back.

Piper pretended she didn’t hear Annabeth’s torment of whines and complaints. “You beat the guy up who gave you syphilis!”

Leo groaned slightly as more people turned their heads. “Can you not say that, please? You make it seem like I slept with Charles, when I did not.”

“It’s the twenty-first century, Leo. Who cares?”

“I do.” Leo eyed Annabeth twiddling her fingers together miserably. “What happened to _her?”_

Piper shrugged.

“I have an idea!” Annabeth exclaimed suddenly, sitting up the best she could, which was not at all. “We should play a game of whose life sucks the most!”

“Let’s not do that,” Piper countered.

“I’d win. I always win.”

Piper sat between her and Leo. “You don’t want to play that. I guarantee I’d win.”

“Oh, no, I do want to play that.” Annabeth rested the side of her head on her hand so she could turn and look at Piper. “I’ll even go first. Percy’s married.”

Piper’s head snapped towards Annabeth, her mouth dropping open in shock. Leo, who had just taken a sip of his beer, choked and some beer came spilling out of his nose.

Piper glanced at Leo in disgust after he started sputtering. “Leo, there’s beer dripping out of your nose and back into your drink.”

Leo shot her a deadly glare and decided to go find somewhere nicer to sit. Preferably somewhere without Piper.

Annabeth looked at Piper expectantly. “I told you I’d win.”

Piper started stirring the drink she’d just gotten with a red straw. “No, you didn’t win.”

“Did you hear me? Percy’s _married_. Like cheating, adulterous, broke the ten commandments married.”

Piper blinked at Annabeth. “I’m pregnant.”

“Oh, yeah.” She chuckled. “I forgot.”

“I don’t think I’m going to tell Jason.”

“I still don’t know if I’d call that winning the life sucks game. You found out beforehand.”

“Baby trumps marriage.”

“Fine. My life still sucks anyways.” Annabeth stole Piper’s drink and took a sip. “You shouldn’t be drinking if you’re pregnant.”

“It’s water, dumbass. Besides, does it matter if I plan on getting an abortion?”

Annabeth sucked on the red straw for a while before answering. “You can’t get an abortion until you tell him. I mean, _you can_ , but I feel like letting him know is something you should probably do first.”

“It’s my body. You don’t get an opinion.”

“Fair enough.” Annabeth continued drinking Piper’s water.

“You’re supposed to be on my side, anyways,” Piper whined.

“I _am_ on your side. Trust me, I will never be on the attendings’ sides ever again. Because, you know, my attending is married.”

“Is everyone’s intern year this hectic, or are we just lucky?”

“You know, I think we might just be lucky.” Annabeth giggled loudly, the alcohol in her bloodstream giving her one hell of a good time. Maybe she’d finally be able to forget Percy and his married self, though it was doubtful.

“Pollux, are you alright!?” a random person screamed as a loud crash rang out throughout the small vicinity of the bar.

Annabeth and Piper simultaneously whipped around, Annabeth’s hair whacking Piper in the face, and were met with the bartender seizing on the floor surrounded by shards of glass and a small pool of blood.

Piper leaped off the seat and dropped next to the bartender to feel for a pulse once he stopped shaking. “His pulse is weak; we need to get him to the hospital.”

Annabeth slid off the seat and stumbled over her own feet. “I think Pollux wins the game.”

“Someone call 911,” Piper exclaimed to the bystanders. “We’re gonna need the ambulance.”

Annabeth knelt on the floor and fell backwards when Pollux’s eyes shot wide open. “He’s awake,” she whispered loudly to Piper, repeatedly smacking her arm to get Piper’s attention.

“Don’t just stand there,” Piper told Annabeth, shrugging her arm away. “Help me!”

Annabeth nodded dutifully and looked down at Pollux. “You collapsed, Pollux. We called the ambulance and they should be here soon.”

Pollux tried to sit up, earning him a few protests from Piper and an aggressive shove to the group from Annabeth. “You called _gurney patrol!?”_

Piper forced him back to the ground. “You collapsed on the floor of the bar. We need to take you to the hospital to run some tests.”

“I don’t need tests,” he protested. “I’m fine!”

Annabeth piped in. “Dude, you collapsed on the floor of this bar. You know how gross this floor is.” Annabeth pressed her fingers to his neck. “His radial pulse is strong now,” she told Piper.

“He has a minor skull contusion,” Piper said, pressing a bleeding spot on his head gingerly.

Annabeth continued fretting over Pollux, managing to be a half-decent doctor despite her current blood alcohol levels. “I can’t believe you slept with someone to get pregnant.”

Piper scrunched her nose. “First of all, is now really the time? Second, why is that such a surprise? Even Leo got some action.”

Leo, who had been standing nearby, is only mildly offended. “Correction, Leo got some _syphilis.”_

Annabeth was checking the dilation of Pollux’s eyes with her phone’s flashlight. “Even that surprised me.”

“Hey!” Leo whined.

Pollux wiggled Annabeth’s hands off of his neck and moved Piper’s hands to her lap. “There is a hospital right across the street,” he started, standing up and moving towards the door slowly. “I will walk myself to the hospital.”

“I don’t think that’s the best idea…” Annabeth warned.

“I got this,” Leo told her and Piper, grabbing his jacket and running after Pollux while screaming his name.

Piper turned to Annabeth and threw a thumb over her shoulder. “We should probably go after them.”

Annabeth nodded, watching Leo nearly slip in a puddle outside the window. “Yeah, probably.”

* * *

Hours later when Pollux is checked into a hospital bed and everything had settled down, Piper hears someone exclaim ‘Ow’ from behind a hospital curtain. Piper almost ignores it but decided against it. Maybe it would give her some cool surgical case, at best.

“What are you doing?” Piper asked, pulling the curtains apart noisily.

Annabeth looked up from where she sat on a hospital bed and attempted to insert an IV into her own arm. “I’m drunk.”

Piper nodded towards the needle. “I can see that.”

“No, I mean I need to put in a banana bag and get _not_ drunk.”

“Why do you need to do that?”

“It was courtesy of La Rue screaming across the hospital halls, and I quote, ‘ _Chase, you better not be walking around drunk off your ass all over my hospital!_ ’”

Piper smiled. “Sounds like her. How’d she catch you?”

“Saw me run into a wall.”

“Ah, that would do the trick.” Piper grabbed two gloves and neared Annabeth, holding her hand out. “I’ll put it in for you. You’ll lose too much blood if you do it yourself.”

Annabeth complied. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The two stayed silent as Piper punctured Annabeth’s skin and hooked the bag up onto a drip stand.

“I feel like you have some unresolved feelings about your pregnancy,” Annabeth said, breaking the silence. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Piper threw away the gloves she’d put on. “Not really, but you won’t leave me alone until I do, will you?”

“Not really,” Annabeth confessed.

Piper sat down on the hospital bed with Annabeth. “I suppose I don’t have a choice then.”

“Nope.” Annabeth wrapped her hand around the drip stand. “What are you going to do?”

Piper ran her hand through her tangled brown locks. “You know what happens to pregnant interns. I don’t want to switch to vagina squad or join the pimple popping team. I’d be wasting so much talent. I was made for surgery.”

“And the father is for sure Grace?”

“It has to be his.”

“You have to tell him.”

“You know what? I don’t want to talk about this.”

“You can’t bring this up and expect me to just drop it.”

Piper stood from the bed. “First of all, you brought it up. Second, watch me.” Piper sulked over to a nurses’ station where Silena and Leo were exchanging words with each other. Annabeth followed Piper, rolling the squeaky drip stand beside her.

Silena looked confused at the two of them. “What are you doing back here? I thought it was your night off.” She addressed Annabeth. “Didn’t you have a date with McDreamy today?”

Leo spoke for Annabeth, thank goodness. “It’s McMarried now.”

_“McWhat?”_

Annabeth groveled. “I came to check on Pollux.”

Piper nodded thoughtfully. “Will he be okay?”

“Do you think he’ll need an operation?” Annabeth added.

Silena shrugged.

“Operation, yes. Okay, harder to tell,” Percy broke in, looking down at Pollux’s charts. When he looked up, he saw Annabeth with the IV. “What happened?”

Annabeth kept her face stoic. “Tequila.”

“Oh.” Percy nodded in concern. “Well, the Basilar artery looks like a balloon, subarachnoid is bleeding, and he has an aneurysm the size of a golf ball.”

Annabeth tightened her grip on the stand and fought the urge to run away.

“There’s no way to clip that,” Leo mused out loud.

“Not without magic fingers,” Silena responded.

“Or a standstill operation,” Percy informed, looking up at the group of four interns.

Piper’s mouth dropped. “You’re doing a standstill – He’s doing a standstill operation!”

Annabeth looked thoroughly unimpressed.

“I want to _try_ one,” Percy continued. He closed Pollux’s binder. “I’ll need some more patient history, overnight labs, and a cerebral angio.” Percy handed the closed binder across Piper and to Annabeth.

Annabeth looked at him in disgust before ripping out the IV and very obviously turning her back on him. “I’m drunk!” she called over her shoulder.

Leo wasted no time in snatching the binder for himself.

Percy dropped his arm to his side. “Annabeth…”

Percy tried to follow Annabeth, but Silena subtly stood in his way, muttering “ _McBastard”_ into her coffee cup. He moved around Silena and was met with Leo blocking his path, not so subtly. Percy grabbed Leo’s shoulders and deliberately moved him to the side, following Annabeth down the hall and disappearing around a corner after her.

Leo started looking through the binder, but Piper stole it from right between his fingers. “What are you doing!?” he protested.

Piper tilted her head and stuck her lips out. “I’m on Annabeth’s side, I really am, but this is a possible standstill.”

“What a friend,” Silena jabbed.

“Whatever,” Piper rolled off. “I’ll be the one in surgery, _so_.”

* * *

“Annabeth!”

Annabeth walked faster, not wanting to talk to him.

“Annabeth!”

“Go away!”

“We should talk about this!”

Annabeth stopped and whipped around. “Here’s a thought! No! Stop following me!” she growled. She turned back around and walked out the automatic hospital doors.

Percy followed her anyways. “Let me explain!”

“Explain?” She laughed incredulously. “You should’ve _explained_ this before we started dating! Oh, here’s an even better one. You should’ve _explained_ this before you took me home while you were married! That sure as hell would’ve been a good time to discuss this!”

“Look, I know how you feel.”

“Do you?” she snarled. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

“Annabeth…”

“If you did know how I feel, then you would shut up and go back inside, because I am this close to getting in my car and making you a pretty painting of red in the parking lot!”

Percy shook his head helplessly, watching her storm into the rain towards her car. Leo ran after Annabeth, taking her keys away from her and holding his umbrella over her head. Percy watched as Leo wrapped his arm around Annabeth and let her shove her face into his shoulder and sob.

Leo and Annabeth disappeared into the rain a few moment later. Percy ran his hand over his face, silently cursing Rachel for even showing up to Seattle in the first place. All she ever does is bring disaster everywhere she goes.

Heart pained and mind sad, Percy forced himself to tear away from Annabeth with a new mission in mind.

Percy worked his way back inside and towards the stairwell. He didn’t even bother with the elevators; he knew they’d be full anyways. Percy ran up three flights of stairs and took a sharp turn, nearly smacking into a wall and nurse respectively.

Percy counted the room numbers as he went until he landed upon room E19. The door was already wide open, so Percy barged in unannounced.

“Apollo,” Percy started, panting. He took in his surroundings and became more annoyed than he knew he could get.

Rachel was sitting on Apollo’s bed, laughing about some story involving one of her previous patients. Apollo was lying in the bed, his head still bandaged from the removal of the brain tumor earlier that day. Despite being in supposed post-operative pain, Apollo was laughing along with Rachel, listening to her words intently.

Upon Percy’s entrance, both Rachel and Apollo turned to look at him and their conversation died off. Percy moved to stand in the corner, pointedly waiting for Rachel to find her way out of the room.

Finally getting the hint, Rachel inhaled. “Well, Apollo, I’d better get going. I have a big surgery tomorrow.” She worked herself off the bed and bent down to give him a kiss on the cheek. “And you need to rest. Goodnight.”

Apollo chucked and then coughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Rachel.”

Rachel took a last look at Apollo, and then glanced at Percy who met her eyes with fire in his own, before escorting herself out of the room and down the hall.

Percy looked to make sure she was gone and then he closed the wooden door rather harshly. Now that it was just Percy and Apollo, Percy was ready to rip him a new one.

“What is she doing here?”

“We’re not wasting time, I see.”

“What is she doing here?”

“We both know Rachel is the best in her field. We could use a neonatal surgeon like her.”

“You _know_ how our relationship ended.”

“This was a business decision. It wasn’t personal.”

Percy threw his arms up. “What a relief it wasn’t personal!” he said sarcastically. “If you bring my wife down here, it’s personal.”

“How I work my surgical unit doesn’t include–”

“Doesn’t include my wife!”

“Doesn’t include your personal life!” Apollo corrected. He took off his glasses he’d been wearing. “Dr. Grace will act as Chief of Surgery until I am back on my feet.”

Percy scoffed. “You gave chief to Jason?”

Apollo shrugged. “There’s no room for personal in being chief,” he threatened.

“Oh, yeah. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How long have you been sleeping with an intern?” he challenged.

Percy grasped for words. “You’re not serious.”

“Close the door on your way out,” Apollo said, ending the conversation. He might as well have spit in Percy’s face.

Percy shook his head, anger radiating off of him. He walked out the door, and said, “I guess part of being chief is personal then,” before slamming the door shut.

* * *

“I’m not a violent person,” Leo whispered to Silena the next morning, eyeing Charles in the corner of the locker room. “I am pro-communication, I hate violence, but he pushed me, and I… I just pushed back.”

“You put him in his place; that’s a good thing.”

Leo whimpered like a kicked puppy. He really did not want to be near Charles. He was scared Charles was ready to take revenge any second that Leo wasn’t alert. “I’m not so sure about that.”

Silena patted Leo’s shoulder. “If Charles tries to lay a hand on you, just come tell me. I’ll take care of it for you.”

Leo’s voice cracked. “I don’t need you to – you don’t need to take care of me! Silena!” he called out, following her retreating form. He grabbed her arm. “If Charles starts something, I’ll take care of it. I’m a grown man, I can handle it.”

“If you say so,” Silena mumbled, pulling her hair up into a ponytail.

Leo was going to respond with a snarky comment, but La Rue slammed the door open, effectively shutting everyone up.

“Okay, people, assignments!” La Rue said a bit too loudly. “McLean, you’re on discharges. Valdez, go to room E19. Chase, you come see me. Now to the two on call last night,” she finished, dumping binders into Silena and Charles’ arms, “sloppy. Redo these and have them to me by noon.”

“Yes, _doctor_ ,” Charles muttered. Silena elbowed Charles in the ribs harshly. It was his charting that got them both in trouble and now it would be his attitude that got them in trouble again.

Once they were gone, Annabeth shrugged on her white lab coat and addressed La Rue. “You wanted to see me?”

“Someone’s popular today,” La Rue commented. “You have a special request from an attending just for you.”

Annabeth’s heart stopped. Today was going to be a long one.

* * *

“I have to do all this today?” Jason asked, flipping through the load of papers that had just been shoved into his arms by Apollo’s assistant.

“Oh, no. That’s just before lunch. After lunch, you’ve got phone calls to make, budget approvals, two staff meetings, four of Apollo’s surgeries, and your own as well.”

Jason made a strangled noise. “Sounds great.”

The assistant gave Jason a lopsided smirk. “You think you can do it?”

Jason gave her a dazzling smile. “Oh, of course. No problem.”

The assistant snickered, muttering _virgins_ under her breath as she did so. Jason stared after her, bewildered. He didn’t really have time to contemplate it before Percy was pestering him next.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” Percy said, slapping Jason on the back.

“Don’t sweat it, Percy. I’m only your boss for a few days.”

“Oh, I’m well aware of the recovery time. I am the one who performed the surgery, after all.”

Jason smiled sweetly. “Oh, yes. You performed the surgery that saved his life and then he proceeded to give me the position of interim chief all while hiring your wife.”

Percy scrunched his nose while returning his smile. “Clearly, he has brain damage.”

Jason continued the friendly façade. “Or perhaps he’s just aware that cardiothoracic surgeons are better than neurosurgeons.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s quite right. Perhaps he’s just aware that neurosurgeons are much busier than cardiothoracic surgeons, considering cardiothoracic is so simple practically anyone can do it.”

Jason grinned tightly. “Did I mention he recruited your wife?”

“You did.”

“Or is it ex-wife now? I’m a bit fuzzy on that.”

Percy rolled his eyes. “We’re separated.”

Speaking of the devil, Rachel appeared around the corner in her pink scrubs and while lab coat. _She really has terrible timing_ , Percy muses to himself.

“Sorry to interrupt what seemed to be a captivating conversation,” Rachel says, quite unapologetically.

“You’re never interrupting,” Jason ensured.

“You’re always interrupting,” Percy insulted.

Rachel’s expression hardened. “I was just checking to see if Dr. Grace secured the –”

“Intern you requested,” Annabeth finished for her, walking up to the group. “He did.”

_Talk about awkward_.

Percy glared at Rachel, suspicious of her intents with Annabeth. Eventually, he gave up the staring content and hurried away with Jason following soon after. He’d find out what she wanted soon enough.

Annabeth eye’s glinted.

“So, what do we have today?”

* * *

“Dr. Chase, define T.T.T.S.”

“Twin-twin transfusion syndrome. In other words, conjoined fetal twins.”

“Connected by?”

“Blood vessels in the placenta.”

“Meaning?”

Annabeth dropped her eyes to the ground and stayed silent.

Rachel analyzed her with her shocking green eyes. “One twin gets too much blood and one gets too little, endangering the lives of both. I’d expect you to know that, Chase.”

The mother of the twins tried to interject. “The other doctors told me that there wasn’t anything to be done…”

“T.T.T.S. is usually impossible to correct, unless you’re one of a handful of surgeons in the world capable of separating fetal blood vessels.” Rachel set down a pen on a table and went to the mother’s side to grab her hand comfortingly. “Luckily for you, I am. We’re going to get you into surgery tomorrow morning. If you have any questions at all, please ask Dr. Chase. From what I’ve seen, she’s the hospital’s most _popular_ intern.”

Annabeth rolled the passive-aggressive comment off her shoulders, and instead chose to follow Rachel out of the room. “I could’ve answered the question if you’d given me the chance,” she hissed so no one would overhear.

Rachel handed the mother’s binder to a nurse to store away. “Chin up, Chase. I’m this tough on everyone, not just the women my husband sleeps with. Now, give her an ultrasound and order some pre-op labs. Let me know when you get the results.”

Annabeth couldn’t do anything but watch as Rachel walked down the hall, taking a little piece of Annabeth’s dignity with her. Unbeknownst to both of them, the mother heard Rachel’s little quip at Annabeth’s adventure in adultery-land.

* * *

“Room E19’s charts, please,” Leo asked the nurse at the station.

“Here you go, doctor,” a nurse said, handing him the binder.

“Thank you.” Leo opened the binder, and he read until –

Leo rushed into the room to confirm what he had just read. There Apollo was, lying in the bed covered in wires and IV lines.

“Sir?” Leo asked.

Apollo looked up. “Oh, good. You’re here. Let’s get started.”

Leo was confused, no doubt, but he figured he could use this as an amazing learning opportunity. He got his flashlight out from his coat’s pocket and flipped it on, grabbing onto Apollo’s eyelid and lifting it up to check pupillary reaction.

Apollo leaned away, Leo’s fingers still lifting one eyelid up. “Valdez.”

“Yes, sir?” Leo asked, continuing to shine the light directly into his eye.

“You’re touching me.”

Leo dropped his hand. “I thought… that’s why you called me in here, isn’t it?”

Apollo waved his hands agitatedly. “No. Listen carefully. As long as I’m in here, I don’t know what’s going on out there,” he gestured towards the hospital halls.

“I don’t understand what that has to do with me,” Leo stated.

“Well, if you let me finish, you would. Today, I need you to be my eyes and ears. Be a sponge.”

_“Sponge?”_

“You report anything and everything happening in this hospital to me.”

“You’re messing with me, aren’t you? Please tell me you’re messing with me.”

“I’m serious, Valdez. Too much has been going on in this hospital that I’m not aware of. It stops today.”

Leo stood gaping at Apollo. Apollo wanted him to be… a sponge. He might as well have said ‘ _Forget the life of a surgeon; you’re a sponge now.’_

“Now, go,” Apollo said, shooing Leo out of the hospital room.

* * *

“Dr. Grace!” Percy yelled, jogging to catch up with him. “You put Chase with Rachel? Are you sure about that?”

“That’s not your call, Jackson.” Jason continued up a flight of stairs. “For the record, I’m always sure.”

“Right,” Percy said, still following Jason around like a baby duckling.

“Did you need something, or do you enjoy following me around, because as the new chief, I’m–”

“ _Interim_ chief.”

Jason faced Percy. “Chief nonetheless.”

Percy tilted his chin up at Jason. “Ever do a standstill surgery?”

Jason’s face lit up. “Why do you ask?”

“Do you want to?” Percy asked, a gleam in his eyes.

* * *

“The location of the aneurysm makes the operation tricky,” Percy explained to Pollux.

“Your body temperature will be lowered to help prevent any damage and help stop the heart,” Jason inputted.

“This will stop the blood flow to the brain which reduces the risk of the aneurysm rupturing. I’ll have 45 minutes to clip the aneurysm,” Percy told Pollux.

Jason continued for Percy. “That is where I will step in and get the heart to start beating again.”

Pollux’s eyes were wide like he’d seen a ghost. “You – you want to freeze my body, drain my blood, and stop my heart?”

“And bring you back,” Percy added.

“In 45 minutes,” Jason piled on top.

Pollux bit his lip. “Is this free?”

Piper, who’d been quiet up until that point, spoke up. “No, it’s obviously not free.”

Jason’s jaw tightened. “Thank you, Dr. McLean. Why don’t you go handle the pre-op labs, please?”

Piper’s shoulders drooped, but she listened to the mandatory suggestion anyways.

Pollux grimaced once Piper left. “How much?”

“What?” Percy asked.

“How much is this going to cost?”

Percy winced. “I don’t think you should worry about that right now.”

“You guys say you can kill me and bring me back, and I believe you. You’re two amazing doctors. But I work at a bar. I don’t have the money you guys have, I don’t have insurance, and something like this is bound to cost a fortune. I’m more worried about what’s after the surgery than the surgery itself, so give me a number. 10 grand?”

No response.

“20?”

Jason avoided eye contact.

“30?” he asked hopefully.

Percy lowered his head. “It’s a couple hundred grand at the very least.”

Pollux went white. “Oh…”

It went unsaid that there was no way for Pollux to undergo the surgery and still be able to afford everything else in his life. He’ll either be dead, or he’ll wish he was.

* * *

Piper bounded into the stairwell and nearly smacked into Jason coming up the stairs.

“Jason! There you are,” Piper said, turning around. “Where’ve you been?”

Jason didn’t grace her with an answer.

“What, are you not talking to me now? Jason!”

Jason reversed towards Piper. “What do you want?”

Piper’s jaw slackened. “What do I _want_?”

“Yes, _what do you want_? You keep ignoring me at your own convenience, and I don’t think I’ve done anything to deserve it. I ask you to dinner last night, and you don’t want to go. Now, you’re suddenly dying for me to talk to you after you reject me time and time again.”

Piper scratched her head, unsure of why this was happening now.

“You don’t want to meet me in on call rooms, you never want to talk to me, until now that is. I would’ve called you and asked what I did to deserve this, but I don’t even have your home phone number, so tell me _what you want.”_

Piper dropped her mouth open, but no words came out.

“That’s what I thought,” Jason said harshly, forcing his way past her.

“We’re having a conversation here!” Piper cried.

“Then tell me what you fucking want!”

Piper shook her head, and Jason bit his bottom lip. Piper didn’t want to, didn’t know she was, until it was already happening.

She’s not sure who grabbed who, but the next thing she knows, Jason’s lips are on hers and she can’t breathe, and it’s too much, but it’s still not enough. Piper pulls Jason closer by his white coat, and Jason grabs her face with tender hands.

Piper’s heart pounds and threatens to hop out of her chest. Her heart hurts for two entirely different reasons. Here Jason was, kissing the breath out of her, and she wanted it to never stop even when she knew it wasn’t right. At the same time, here Jason was, kissing the breath out of her while Piper was pregnant with their child and ready to abort their baby without so much as letting him know what was going on.

She knows it’s not fair; she knows what she’s meant to do in this instant. She does the opposite.

She stays silent.




Honestly, Leo is really trying hard to mind his own business. He doesn’t want to disobey the chief and not report anything that happens in the hospital, but he also doesn’t want to sell out his coworkers and be dubbed a tattletale.

It’s this that drives him to go into the stairwell. He wants to get away from everyone and their possibilities of troublesome situations, and he figures the best place to do that is the place where no one goes in the first place.

Leo strides right on into that stairwell, ready to sit and ignore everything going on in the walls of the hospital. He even lets out a sigh of relief, no longer worried he’s going to catch one of his friends (specifically Annabeth) doing something they shouldn’t be doing.

Well, he doesn’t have to worry about catching Annabeth doing something, it seems.

Leo doesn’t even make it one step down the stairs before he catches Piper and Dr. Grace passionately making out against the railing of the stairs. The wet sounds of lips and tongues smacking together echo through the empty space, so there was no denying what Leo just saw.

Leo ran back through the door he came through, slamming it shut behind him. A scream of disgust barely made its way through his throat. Man, he wished he would’ve swallowed bleach instead. It would’ve hurt less.

He leaned against the wall and held his right hand over his pounding heart. He thought he could count on the stairwell to make his job easier, but it just made it a thousand times worse.

Leo can’t believe what he just saw, and now is forced to go tell the chief about.

He just saw Piper and Dr. Grace _getting it on_ in the stairwell.

Oh, shit.

* * *

“Tell me the scoop, Valdez.”

“Oh, there’s nothing going on here, sir.”

“Nothing?”

Leo twiddled his thumbs. “Nothing.”

“There has to be something going on. Tell me something about the interns, or the attendings.”

Leo chokes. “There’s nothing going on. Nothing in the hallways, or in the ORs, or the stairwells… why would anything be happening in the stairwells? I don’t know. They’re just stairwells…”

Apollo eyed Leo suspiciously, poking at a bowl of jello in his lap. “You know something.”

“I know nothing.”

“Liar.”

His voice cracked. “I’m not.”

“Then get out and don’t come back until you know something _juicy_.”

Leo nearly gags in pure disgust.

* * *

“Pollux!” Charles greeted, giving him a fist bump. “I heard you were in a hospital gown, but I had to come see for myself.”

Pollux moved his arm to underneath his head. “Heard Valdez gave you a new one. I’m lovin’ the purple eye.”

“It looks good, doesn’t it? Makes the girls think I’m all mysterious.”

Pollux scoffed good-naturedly, and then he turned serious as he leaned in. “Listen, Charles, you gotta get me out of here. Get me to a county hospital, or something.”

Charles opened the wrapping of a gift basket that Pollux had sitting on a table. “You don’t want to go to county, trust me. Here, they know how to kill you and bring you back. There, they only know how to kill you.”

“I can’t afford this place. I’m going to have to sell the bar.”

Charles popped Pollux’s gifted candy into his mouth. “First, we focus on saving your life.”

“The bar is my life. I can’t afford to lose it. If I get the surgery, I have to sell the bar to pay for it. If I sell the bar, then I don’t have a way to get money at all. I’m screwed either way.”

“You can’t sell the bar. Everyone at this hospital goes there.”

“If I get this operation, I don’t have a choice.”

“I’ll help you. Look, I’ll pay my tab right now.” Charles grabbed his wallet from his scrubs pockets. “How much do I owe?”

“Close to a thousand.”

Charles sucked his teeth. “How about I pay, like, 60?” He handed Pollux the money. “I’ll pay the rest back later. It’s gotta be good for something.”

Pollux grabbed the three twenty-dollar bills. “This will get me approximately one sandwich from the cafeteria here.”

Leo wandered into the room, and Pollux noticed him before Charles did. “Hey, Champ! You did a nice job with Charles’ eye!”

Leo’s head shot up, and he grinned for a second before realizing Charles was standing right next to Pollux. His smile fell and Leo felt trapped like a deer in headlights. He decided it’d be best if he immediately left the room, terrified Charles would throw a scalpel at him and somehow puncture one of his arteries.

* * *

“Talking to yourself?” Annabeth questioned, watching Leo mutter something to himself as he watched the babies in the nursery.

Leo jumped. “No! Not talking to myself! I was just– dang it! I’m a bad sponge; a leaky sponge.”

Annabeth chuckled lightly, sliding in next to him to look at the newborns.

Leo crossed his arms and looked back through the nursery glass. “You look nice today,” he muttered.

Annabeth rolled her head to rest it on Leo’s shoulder. “Wore my new lipgloss because my ex-boyfriend’s wife looks like a supermodel and I look like _me_ ,” she said dejectedly.

“The lipgloss is probably good, though. No chapped lips and…” Leo made the mistake of looking at Annabeth’s lips and he lost his train of thought. “Uh,” he stammered. “Ex-boyfriend?”

Annabeth nodded slowly, not moving her eyes from the nursery. “I’m a mistress. A dirty, evil, slutty mistress.”

“You still look good,” he offered. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Can you think of something, any reason at all, that Piper would be kissing Grace?”

Annabeth’s eyes widened. “Why?”

Leo whistled _. “Oh, I just found them about ready to have their way with each other in the stairwell.”_

* * *

“What does it take for a woman to go after another woman’s husband?” the mother of the twins asked while Annabeth squeezed ultrasound jelly onto her lower tummy.

Annabeth looked up, startled. “Excuse me?”

“The same thing happened to me. My husband moved in with some girl decades younger than him while I was three weeks into my pregnancy – that gel is really cold by the way.”

Annabeth withheld an annoyed groan. “I’m sorry about your husband.”

“Are you sorry about Dr. Dare-Jackson’s husband?”

Annabeth’s hand holding the ultrasound wand stilled. “Uh – I’m going to be checking a few things with the twins,” Annabeth tried to continue.

“She asked to work with you, didn’t she? It’s what I would’ve done. I would’ve wanted to see the girl who could destroy someone’s marriage willingly all for a few mushy feelings. When I found out about the girl my husband was sleeping with, I asked her to lunch. I told her it was civil, and it wasn’t her fault, but I really just wanted to put a face on the girl to ruin fifteen years of marriage.”

Annabeth opted to examine the ultrasound instead of get into it with this stranger. Annabeth moved the wand around, and something on the screen caught her eye. She needed Rachel _now_. Annabeth wiped the girl’s belly and moved the machines away from her. “I’m just going to go check on some labs,” she said, a point over her shoulder. “Hang tight.”

* * *

Percy grabbed Rachel by her upper arm, pulling her aside from the flow of doctors and nurses in the hospital. “What are you doing?”

Rachel tilted her head in mock confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Why did you ask Annabeth to work with you?”

“Oh, come on. She was highly recommended. I just wanted to see her work for myself.”

“Right.”

“So, you don’t recommend her, then?”

“I did not say that.”

“So, just not for her medical skills.”

Percy was seething. “Would you shut up?”

“Are my comments about the slutty mistress bothering you?”

Percy shot her a dirty look.

“ _Fine_. The slutty intern.”

“It was the ‘slutty’ I had a problem with.”

Rachel sneered at him.

“Dr. Jackson,” Annabeth said, tearing Rachel and Percy out of their secluded little bubble.

Both Percy and Rachel responded, “Yes?”

Annabeth completely ignored Percy. “Labs show what looks like abnormalities on the ultrasound. I think you should come take a look.”

“Fine. Let’s go,” Rachel said, shooting Percy one last mocking smile. Annabeth turned on her heel and followed Rachel.

“Annabeth,” Percy tried.

Annabeth didn’t even look at him. “Don’t.”

Rachel waited for Annabeth to catch up, shooting Percy an _I win_ look. “What did you find?”

“I’ve detected what looks like beginning heart failure in the twins. It shows on the ultrasound, and the labs show elevated BNP levels.” Annabeth handed the labs to Rachel.

“Damn it.” Rachel bit her lip, looking at the labs. “I need you to go book an OR. We need to go in right away, or these kids aren’t going to make it.”

* * *

“Still no news, sir.” Leo lied. “Nothing going on here, so I’m just gonna go…”

Apollo stopped him. “Nothing at all?”

Leo thought for a moment. “Actually, there is something…”

“Percy and Jason marking territory like dogs?”

Leo forced a laugh. “Actually, it’s about Pollux, the bartender. He’s here in the hospital and he needs standstill surgery, but he can’t afford it.”

“What do you expect me to do with this information?”

“I was hoping we could figure out a way to help him. Maybe do the surgery pro-bono or find a less expensive way to operate.”

Apollo laced his fingers together. “You’re a surgeon, Valdez. You’re supposed to heal people, not worry about their financial status.”

“I know, but–”

“That isn’t your job, Valdez. It isn’t my job. It certainly isn’t the job I assigned you today, either.”

“But, sir…”

“I sympathize, I really do, but it’s not our job to worry about it.”

“Doesn’t it feel wrong to just cut him open and sew him up, leaving him with nothing?”

“It’s hardly leaving him with nothing if he lives. Besides, he has a right to refuse the surgery.”

“But that’ll kill him.”

“Then I suppose he has no choice.”

“Dr. Apollo, please.”

“Goodbye, Dr. Valdez.”

* * *

“Dr. Apollo!” Leo yelled excitedly. “Pollux is dead!”

Apollo choked on his water he’d been drinking. “Why do you sound so excited about that!?”

“He’s _technically_ dead, which is science! That’s a huge step in science, killing someone and bringing them back to life. I thought some research foundation would have interest in this!”

Apollo snatched the papers being waved in his face from Leo’s hands. “You want to donate Pollux’s body to science?”

Leo checked his watch. “For the next 17 minutes, at least.”

“A privately funded grant?”

“For educational purposes. We’re a teaching hospital, so it qualifies.”

Apollo rubbed his face tiredly. “I didn’t think you’d blatantly ignore my instructions.”

“If it might help Pollux, then it’s worth a shot. It’s someone’s life.”

“It’s always someone’s life, Valdez.” Apollo flipped open the research grant’s information packet. Leo stood watching him intensely. “You can leave now, Valdez.”

“Right away, sir.” Leo hurried himself out of the room, excitement and accomplishment coursing through his veins. His idea might’ve just helped save Pollux’s life.

* * *

“That was amazing!” Piper said in astonishment, closing the door to the on-call room. “You just killed that guy and brought him back to life all within one hour!”

Jason gave her a sweet but tired smile. “It was pretty amazing, wasn’t it?”

“It must’ve felt incredible.” Piper said, stepping towards Jason and into his arms. Jason wrapped his arms around her small waist. “Hey, uh, do you still have those dinner reservations? I’m starving.”

Jason extended his arms a bit, pushing her away. “Piper. We need to talk.”

Piper’s face fell. He knows. “Yeah, I guess we do.”

“It’s been pretty clear.”

“It has?”

“We both know better than to think that we’d be able to continue this relationship without consequence.”

Piper held up her hands. “Wait a second–”

“Our relationship was doomed before it even began. Interns and attendings don’t work. Take Annabeth for example.”

“That’s entirely different. Percy was _married_.”

“Regardless, relationships like this always fail for one reason or another. We both know we’ll only end up hurt in the end.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you wanted me to be sure, and I am sure. I want you.”

“We have careers and reputations to uphold. We both put our jobs first. You’re focused on your future, and I respect that. I don’t want to be the one to hold you back, and if we stay together, that’s exactly what’ll happen.”

“Jason.”

“All I could think about today was you. It was affecting my performance in the OR, my performance with patients. I can’t have that happening.”

“But I’m–” Piper broke off.

“You’re what?”

A single tear fell down her face. “Nothing.”

Jason wiped the tear with his thumb. “I think it’s best we make a clean break before things get messy.” He opened the on-call room’s door and, taking a last glance at Piper, he said, “I’m sorry.”

Piper wrapped her arms tightly around her stomach. “You’re right. Before things get messy.”

If only he knew.

* * *

Leo stood around the corner of Apollo’s room, peeping inside every few seconds. He thought he was being subtle enough that Apollo wouldn’t notice Leo watching him read over the papers.

“Get in here, Valdez.”

Apparently, he was _not_ that subtle.

Leo turned the corner sheepishly, his hands knotted behind his back. “Yes, sir?”

Apollo simply stared at Leo until he broke apart in a bunch of word vomit.

“Fine! There’s so much going on in this hospital! Stuff that I’ll never be able to unsee, not even if I bleach my eyes, and trust me, I want to. Stuff I’m going to have nightmares about…” Leo trailed off for a few seconds. “But I’m not going to tell you about any of it because it doesn’t matter!”

Apollo scrunched his eyebrows together. “Excuse me?”

“It doesn’t matter when Pollux’s life is on the line. I’m not going to tell you the gossip floating around these halls when Pollux, someone we know and love, is going to go bankrupt as a result of having his life saved. It’s not fair. I spent the whole day looking for a solution!”

“Valdez–”

“Let me finish!”

Apollo crossed his arms.

“You can fire me, or whatever. But Pollux deserves this. He deserves a chance.”

Apollo stared at Leo. “Are you done?”

Leo suddenly remembered his place. “Yes, sir.”

“Now, I’ve signed your request,” Apollo said, handing Leo signed forms. “Give it to my assistant, she’ll know what to do. Pollux gets to keep his bar after all.”

Leo took the forms, hand trembling. “Really? Thank you, sir! I’ll bring these to your assistant right away!”

Apollo interrupted. “Valdez.”

Leo paused. “Yes?”

“Yell at me again and you’ll be out of this program faster than you can say scalpel.”

Leo grinned his impish smile. “Yes, sir.”

“And Valdez?”

“Mhm?”

“Nice work today.”

* * *

“See this? It’s a tiny scar,” Rachel said, pointing to the incision on the mother’s belly. “Now, I will have Dr. Chase come back and check on you later.”

The mother hesitated. “Actually, I’d prefer to have Dr. Chase taken off of my case.”

Annabeth stood from where she was leaning against the wall, suddenly more alert.

Rachel tilted her head and scoffed. “Why? Is there a problem?”

“She just reminds me of someone I don’t like very much. Someone my husband likes a lot. Especially in lingerie.” The mother eyed Annabeth with malice. “You’d understand, Dr. Jackson.”

Rachel shifted her weight to one foot. “Actually, I don’t understand at all.”

“Well, she’s sleeping with your husband, isn’t she?”

Rachel crossed her arms. “Ms. Phillips, I lack Dr. Chase’s class and patience, so let me set the record straight. My husband didn’t cheat on me; I cheated on him, so the wronged woman here– Dr. Chase.”

Rachel’s lips curled into a smile once again, her eyes sending a lethal message.

“I think you owe her one _hell_ of an apology.”

* * *

Piper found Annabeth sitting at the bar later that night. Piper slid in next to her wordlessly, picking at the bowl of peanuts between them.

“Hey,” Annabeth said softly, stirring her drink but not actually taking a sip.

“Hey.” Piper cracked the shell of a peanut and set it down. “Jason broke up with me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I had it coming.” Piper paused and changed the topic. “The abortion clinic has this policy – it’s dumb.”

“What is it?”

“They wouldn’t let me confirm my appointment until I designated an emergency contact. Someone to help me home, and just be with me in case anything happens, you know?” Piper took a deep breath.

Annabeth kept stirring her drink mindlessly, not pushing Piper to keep talking.

“Anyways, I put your name. That’s why I told you about being pregnant.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. You’re my person.”

“I am?”

“You are. Shut up.”

Annabeth rubbed Piper’s back gently. “I’m not saying anything.”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever,” Annabeth repeated.

Piper’s eyes glistened. “Thank you.”

Annabeth looked at Piper with empathy. “Come here,” she said, dropping her drink and wrapping Piper in her arms.

“You realize this qualifies as hugging, right?” Piper tried, hiccuping.

“Who cares? I’m your person.”

* * *

Somehow, after telling herself she wouldn’t, Annabeth found herself in Percy’s yard. She left the hospital, and she wasn’t aware of where she was going until she was already there. Somehow, Annabeth stood in front of Percy’s silver trailer that overlooked all of Seattle and cursed herself. She had promised she wouldn’t do this. It would only hurt more if she held on.

Annabeth was finally letting herself be happy. She wasn’t under her mother’s watchful eyes or judging personality. Annabeth was herself. She was happy.

She had the job of her dreams, and yes, it wasn’t always the easiest, but it was what she was made for. She had friends who supported her and loved her for her. Best of all, she had her boyfriend. She hadn’t known him long, but she genuinely found herself wanting more with him. She wanted a family; she wanted a life with him. Annabeth had never wanted that before. The thought should’ve scared her, but all she felt was excitement.

Finding out he was married– it hurt. Her dreams shattered right in front of her eyes. She knew it wasn’t rational, but he felt like she was sinking, like she couldn’t do it. She’d never have a family; she’d never have a life. She felt like she wasn’t going to survive.

Just when she was finally building herself up, Percy brought her tumbling right back down to the start.

Annabeth cursed his name, wished she’d never met him, wish he’d never gotten her to love him, yet she always circled back to where she was now. She always ended up here, wanting him more than ever; needing him more than ever.

Annabeth was here, standing in Percy’s yard. She wanted to leave, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Maybe part of her _wanted_ Percy to see her. She wanted to scream, to cry, to fight, to love, to forgive.

Annabeth took a deep breath of the chilling Seattle air, getting ready to just leave. There was no point to being here. Their relationship was dead. Things like this happen for a reason. Situations like this take everyone down with it.

Just as she’s about to get in her car, someone calls out her name.

“Annabeth?”

Annabeth turns, startled, and sees Percy standing outside the door to his trailer.

“What are you doing here?”

Annabeth shrugs, pulling her winter coat tighter around herself. “I’m still asking that myself.”

Percy looks at her with something akin to love. “Come inside. It’s cold out; you’re probably freezing.”

Annabeth shook her head. “No thanks. I should really stay out here.”

Percy takes a look inside his trailer before stepping away and letting the door to his trailer shut behind him. He walks up to Annabeth, the breeze rustling his black hair in the moonlit sky.

“I’m sorry.”

Annabeth froze. “Don’t.”

“I need to explain. Please.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I should’ve. If I was smarter, I would’ve.”

“Your wife cheated on you.”

“She did.”

“That doesn’t make what you did to me okay.”

“I know.”

“I want to hate you.”

Percy took a step closer to Annabeth. “I know.”

“Did you leave New York because your wife cheated?”

Percy stepped back, the tension obvious in his body. “Yes and no. I think it was more _how_ she cheated.”

Annabeth’s nose was red, and her hair was being tangled in the wind. She motioned for him to continue.

Percy looked Annabeth in the eyes. Grey clashed on green. “I came home from work one day, and something felt different. I didn’t know what was different, but I knew something was. I unlocked my front door, and something was off. There was nothing particularly interesting about the house. There was just this feeling that I couldn’t shake.”

He took a shaky breath and reached a hand towards Annabeth, who moved away. “When you’re in the OR, you know what’s going to happen next. You just get a feeling, and this was exactly like the OR. I knew that when I entered my bedroom, I was going to see my wife in bed with someone else. I walked up the stairs, and I tried to prepare myself for what was coming next. I just knew what I was about to see.”

“I stepped in a man’s jacket at the top of the stairs, and everything shifts. Everything I thought I knew suddenly changed. The man’s jacket that isn’t mine is a jacket that I recognize. I now know that when I go into my bedroom, not only will I see my wife cheating on me, but I will see her cheating on me with Luke. My best friend.”

“I didn’t even say a word. I walked out and never looked back. That’s when I came to Seattle.”

Annabeth interjected. “That’s when you met me.”

Percy nodded. “We were separated. I wasn’t with my wife anymore. I fell in love with you that night at the bar.”

“You fell in love with me?”

“I did. I still am in love with you.”

Annabeth took breath, desperate for air. “Are you leaving your wife?”

Percy was silent.

“You’re staying with her now, aren’t you?”

“I love you so much, Annabeth. I want to be with you, but she’s my wife.”

Annabeth held up a hand to stop him. “I just don’t get it. How can you go from fighting with each other in hallways to being a happily married couple in a few hours?”

“I didn’t. We’re not happily married, and I’m not sure that we will be ever again. It’s not fair to either of you, but I made a vow to Rachel. I promised to put Rachel first, and as much as it pains me to say, it applies here too.”

“So, you’re telling me that you’re staying with Rachel? After _everything_ , you pick her?”

“She’s my wife. I owe it to her to at least try.”

Annabeth bit her lip. “Okay.”

“Annabeth–”

“No, it’s fine. I get it. You’re always going to pick the person who destroyed you. It’s what always happens. You destroyed me, yet here I am practically begging at your feet.”

“Annabeth.”

“I don’t think there’s anything left to be said, Percy. I think we both know it’s over.”

“I’m sorry.”

Annabeth turned her back.

“Me too.”


	4. Chapter 4

Annabeth glared at Silena, tugging her cozy blankets back over her head. She was really not in the mood to play around, and she kept telling Silena that, but the girl truly did not give two craps. She just continued to bother Annabeth anyways.

“I’m not going,” Annabeth snapped, smacking Silena’s wandering hand away from her forehead. It stung a bit since Silena decided to wear a giant ring on her right ring finger, and Annabeth threw some lovely insults at her.

“You don’t have a choice,” Silena warned, continuing to pull at the blanket from Annabeth’s feet, weary that Annabeth would end up kicking her. “You’re an intern. You can’t afford to miss a day of work.”

“Too bad because I’m not going,” she huffed back, the bed creaking as she turned over. “The hospital will survive without me. There’s a million interns there.”

“You’re a surgical intern,” Leo pitched in from his position perched against the doorframe. He wisely was staying out of Annabeth’s reach. “You’ll never become a surgeon if you don’t practice. You’ll end up failing your intern exam, and then your boards, and you’ll never become a better surgeon than Piper. Don’t you want to show Piper up?”

Annabeth rolled her eyes, tightening her arms around herself. “Piper is a menace and she can go to hell.”

Leo glanced to Silena, confused. “Did Piper do something…?”

“No,” Annabeth growled. “I love Piper and I have no idea why I said that. Regardless, I’m still not going.”

Silena and Leo stayed silent for a while, and Silena shot him a look that said _do something_. Leo really didn’t want to argue against Annabeth because he was scared she’d hurt him, but with the look Silena was giving him, he had more to worry about if he _didn’t_ argue against Annabeth.

“Annabeth,” Leo started, sitting by her bed. “Maybe there will be a freak accident today. Multiple traumas?” He leaned in. “You might be able to steal a few surgeries today.”

“I don’t care,” she moaned miserably. “I’m not going.”

“Is this about Jackson?”

“I will murder you.”

“Is it?” Leo prompted reluctantly. Silena just kept munching on a box of cereal, enjoying the show. If anyone was to die, it would be Leo at the moment, so Silena was perfectly content where she was.

“This has nothing to do with Percy,” Annabeth insisted, still not looking at either of them. What she said was true. This really wasn’t about Percy. Her and Percy were through, and that was that. He chose his wife and she didn’t have to like it, but she did have to respect it.

Annabeth wasn’t the type of person to freak out every time she saw an ex. She was more likely to hold her head up high and look them in the eyes, showing them exactly what they were missing. It’s what she’d been doing with Percy, and it worked well enough. She assisted him in surgeries and did as he asked. By no means was she happy with the things that had went down that night at the trailer, but she was surviving.

It had been a few weeks, so there wasn’t really any reason for her to want to skip work now. No, this was something much, _much_ bigger.

There was a really bad feeling in her gut. Annabeth had heard stories about people close to death — they usually knew that they were about to die. It was some freak instinct that so many people had. People just knew. She really wasn’t one-hundred percent sure it actually existed until now.

When she woke up, she could not shake the feeling that something was very wrong. The only word that came up in her mind was _death_.

Annabeth felt like she was going to die today, and that thought scared her. She’d been around too many dying people to just throw the feelings under the carpet and continue on with her day. Nothing bad had happened, but she knew it was only a matter of time. Even if nothing ended up happening, it was better safe than sorry.

“I have a feeling,” Annabeth settled for. If she told them why she didn’t want to go to work, they’d surely send her up to the psychiatric floor. She wasn’t ready to become the source of gossip in the hospital for the week. “I’m not going to work.”

“Do you want to explain what this feeling is?” Silena said gently, still cradling a box of cheerios.

“I have a feeling,” she repeated sternly. “So leave me alone because I’m not leaving this bed.”

“Don’t make me call Piper,” Silena warned, stuffing her mouth and crunching loudly on flakes of cereal. “She’ll make you get out of bed.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would. I’m going to.”

Annabeth looked over her shoulder lazily to analyze Silena’s face. She really didn’t look like she was kidding, and it was almost enough to get her out of the bed. Almost.

Instead, she just winked defiantly at Silena and snuggled deeper into the comforter. After all, death trumps Piper’s demanding attitude any day. “Go ahead.”

Silena just huffed and stormed off to somewhere else in the house. Leo followed her like an obedient little puppy, too weary — or is it wise? — to stay alone in a room with a person who has a _feeling_.

Annabeth smirked to herself. The house was silent, and it stayed that way for a while. She began to think that no one was going to show up to drag her out of bed. If she didn’t want to go to work, then it was her problem to deal with. No one else had to play a role her personal decision. With that thought, she began to drift back off to sleep, comfortable knowing that in the confines of her own home, death couldn’t grab hold of her.

She ended up getting jerked awake what felt like hours later but was more realistically only thirty minutes later. Of course she was met with Piper’s figure looming over her which would’ve been an eerie sight if it was any darker in the room.

“You have a _feeling_?”

“Go away,” Annabeth said, flicking the bridge of her nose.

Piper covered her nose, eyes watering from the sting. “You can’t skip work because you have some sort of feeling.”

“I can, and I will.”

“Is this about Percy?”

Annabeth clicked her teeth, because this could seriously not be happening. It had been weeks since they broke up. “Why does everyone keep asking me that? This is not about him.”

“The what is it about?”

Annabeth glowered at Piper. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” Piper insisted, lifting the comforter and sliding in next to Annabeth to be the big spoon. “You’re feeling dark and twisty? I’m the girl for you.”

“You’re not dark and twisty,” Annabeth muttered lamely, secretly grateful for Piper’s warming presence under the sheets.

“I just lost my baby two weeks ago before I got a chance to tell Jason about the pregnancy or my plans to get an abortion.”

“That’s pretty dark,” Annabeth agreed. “I’m sorry you had an ectopic pregnancy.”

“It’s the way things turned out.” Piper poked Annabeth. “We can’t fix the past, but we can fix you, so what’s up?”

“I have a feeling,” she whispered for what felt like the hundredth time that morning.

“What type of feeling?”

“I feel like I’m going to die.”

“We’re all going to die. Did you know that the human race has a 100% mortality rate?”

“Don’t be a smartass.”

“Well, it’s true.” Piper poked Annabeth’s temple again. “I’m trying to be nice, but we’re going to be late.”

“You suck at being a supportive friend.”

“Fine. You have two seconds of me being supportive.”

Annabeth glared at Piper, but the words were already tumbling from her lips. “My life is falling apart. He chose her and—”

“—So this _is_ about him—”

“Shut up,” Annabeth seethed, continuing on her rampage. “Red-headed bitch has my boyfriend. She has my life, and I’m stuck here with the unshakeable feeling of death.”

“Anything else?” Piper joked with a terrible sense of timing. She really did not know how to read the room.

“And we’re out of food. He also kept the glow in the dark condoms.”

Piper snorted.

“It’s not funny,” Annabeth cried out. “Those were expensive, and they were mine!”

“Do you have a dick?” Piper asked, cackling.

“I had one before _she_ came and stole it!”

“Okay,” Piper said, standing up from the bed. “So you feel like you just need to stay in bed and feel like you might die?”

“Exactly.”

“Yeah, no. Get up.”

Annabeth sneered, kicking Piper away from her. “No.”

“You are a surgical resident. You didn’t go into debt due to medical school and waste the best years of your life to mope about your boyfriend dumping you.”

“I’m moping because I’m going to die today.”

“Guess what?” Piper jumped onto the bed and stood over Annabeth’s curled up body.

“What?”

Piper stuck her lower lip out to pout at Annabeth, and in hindsight, Annabeth really should’ve known better than to think Piper would be nice.

“Everyone has their problems! You have to get up and deal with them, so get your lazy-ass out of bed and get to work before you become like 007.”

A distant “ _Hey_!” was heard through the door, but Annabeth didn’t have time to acknowledge the rest of the house eavesdropping on them because Piper was suddenly kicking Annabeth out of bed aggressively enough to probably form some bruises in the hours to come.

“Move move move,” Piper chanted cheerfully as Annabeth scampered out of bed and out of the room in an attempt to stop Piper’s torrent of physical blows.

Annabeth ran out of the room, nearly tripping over Silena and Leo who had their ears pressed to the wooden door. Piper chased her out of the room, only stopping to look at the other two roommates and tell them, “We’re good to go.”

Leo stammered, because what had Piper even said to get Annabeth up so fast, but Silena just gave Piper a thumbs up and turned to get dressed for her shift at the hospital.

Annabeth would just have to suck it up and deal with the feeling of death. She was around it often enough, so she prayed that her intuitions were off, and that today wasn’t about to be the worst day of her life. Maybe Piper was doing her a favor by preventing her from getting fired. Annabeth still didn’t appreciate Piper’s hostile approach to getting her up and out of the house.

As she was dragged out of the house and to the car, she told herself that she was fine. Annabeth probably had a bad dream that was still having jostling brain, or maybe she was just off today. Somehow though, she knew without a doubt that it was nothing more than wistful thinking.

* * *

Annabeth reached behind herself to tie the thin trauma gown, watching as her group of interns complained about the slow day ahead of them. Leo kept talking about how boring it was with barely any surgeries being churned out, saying something along the lines about _why couldn’t more people almost die so he could cut them open?_ It was a pretty bold statement, in Annabeth’s professional opinion, but she found that she may even agree a bit.

What could she say? She needed the distraction.

“It’s too quiet of a day,” Silena pressed, shoving Leo around to tie his yellow trauma gown. “It’s so weird.”

“Right?” Leo popped his back. “It’s never been such a slow day.”

“Maybe you should stop saying that,” Annabeth proposed, leaning against the glass door. “It’s like you’re jinxing yourself.”

“I would love to jinx myself,” Charles said with that nasty, self-centered smile. “If it means I get more surgeries.”

“You know what else it means?” They all looked at her expectantly. “Death.”

Piper groaned. “You need to get over this. You’re not going to die.”

“Tell me what when I survive the day.”

“I will.” Piper stared at Annabeth and then turned on her heel, leading the group of interns out the trauma bay doors. Annabeth, however, decided to stay behind to give herself a moment to gather her thoughts.

She kept staring out the glass doors, watching her friends dance around waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Her breathing was heavier than she would’ve liked, and for some reason she found herself holding back the few tears springing up in her eyes.

“Are you okay?”

Annabeth turned her head to the right and she, of course, saw Percy looking at her from the nurse’s station, jotting down some notes in a binder. Just the person she needed to see on the day everything felt like it was falling apart beneath her fingers.

She turned her head back, nose haughty in the air. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Really?” she said sarcastically, crossing her arms and evening out her breathing as the feeling inside of her intensified.

“Really,” he said, closing the binder and walking to stand next to her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Annabeth,” he signed, looking down at her from where he towered over her. “You can still talk to me.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Come on,” he said, gently elbowing her. “Humor me.”

She wasn’t going to, really, but then she looked at him and all she felt was safety. He was warm, and she didn’t want to confide in him – she knew she shouldn’t – but it was too late because she was already opening her mouth to blurt out her thoughts.

“I have a feeling.”

“You do?” Percy scrunched his eyebrows. “I get those sometimes.”

“Bad feelings?”

“All the time,” he said. “If you wait long enough, it’ll pass.”

“I hope so.”

“Do you want to tell me about the bad feeling?”

“Not really,” Annabeth said. “This is weird. Isn’t your wife going to come around the corner and get mad at you?”

“My wife doesn’t control my life,” he said with the raise of an eyebrow.

“Huh. I would’ve never guessed.”

“Funny.”

“You brought it on yourself. Your wife controls everything about your life.”

“Glad to see what you think of me.” His green eyes looked at her earnestly, and she felt warm and at home. “Seriously, though. You’ll be okay with this supposed feeling?”

“I’ll be okay,” she confirmed, her face flushing because this felt too intimate. He shouldn’t be asking her if she’s okay or trying to comfort her because they broke up. He is literally married, and his wife is somewhere around the hospital, saving babies like a goddamn hero. She was kidding herself if she ever thought she could compete with that.

“In that case, I should probably get going. I’ve got a craniotomy.” Percy held up to fingers in a mock salute. “I’ll be waiting for it to pass.”

Annabeth gave him a tight smile. “Me too.”

Percy looked at her again, and it looked almost like he was longing for her, but he didn’t give her the chance to debate over it before he was off to his next surgery, leaving her to make her way outside with the rest of the interns.

Annabeth shook the interaction from her head and instead pushed through Charles and Silena, who were arguing about their screwed-up relationship. It was all pretty funny to Annabeth because her two friends were insulting each other after a failed attempt at dating, while Annabeth was here being civil to the guy who was married. It was all so ironic.

Silena and Charles kept arguing, and Silena gave him a jab as she brought up him sleeping with another woman, which had to sting, but also it was nothing compared to Annabeth. She wins, all around.

“Who do you think we’re going to get today?” Annabeth asked Piper, crossing her arms to protect against the biting cold.

“Which resident, you mean?” Piper hummed, deep in thought. “I have no idea.”

“I really wish La Rue didn’t have to leave,” Leo complained. “She’s so much better than the other residents.

“She’s pregnant, Leo,” Annabeth chastised. “Pretty far along, too.”

“I don’t know how she didn’t realize sooner.”

“Relax, kid,” Annabeth said. “She’ll be back, but until then, let’s hope we don’t get a terrible resident.”

“It’s probably going to be that one bitch—” Piper’s jaw dropped as she turned to look at Annabeth and spotted something over her shoulder. “No way.”

Annabeth followed her gaze, and speak of the devil, there La Rue was, glaring at them. She looked short and buff, and definitely angry as she held her pregnant belly. Annabeth knew from the looks they were getting that they were about to be in very big trouble. For what, she didn’t know. There was a lot they could’ve gotten a beating for.

“You’re back!” Silena said excitedly as she turned to look at their mentor.

“I am not back!” La Rue snapped. “I’m supposed to be at home growing another human being, but then you creatures decided to run off another resident. That’s two in as many weeks!”

“They were–” Silena tried, being the kiss ass of the group.

“Not a peep from you!” La Rue pointed at Silena threateningly, and then at each of the rest of them. A siren went off behind them. “Now, since you’ve ran off every other resident, I’m stuck here running you rascals around.”

“You’re glad to see us,” Leo said with his elfish grin.

“You could not be more wrong. I wish I never had to see your ugly faces again.”

“Charming,” Annabeth deadpanned.

“Shut it, Chase.” La Rue looked behind her interns and then glared at all of them again. “And while you’re too busy pissing me off, you failed to notice your incoming trauma! Chase, McLean, Beckendorf, you three stay here and wait for the incoming trauma. Valdez and Beauregard, page Rachel Dare and get me an ultrasound and a wheelchair.”

The five interns stared at her, confused. They completely disregarded the first demand as the second one set in. Leo, being the daredevil, decided to speak up and ask questions.

“What do you want me to say to Dr. Dare-Jackson?” he asked, stepping forward to confront her.

“I’m pregnant! I didn’t come here just to scold you rascals. I need her to perform an ultrasound, so stop standing there and do what I said!”

No one moved, thoroughly confused.

“Did I stutter?” La Rue glared at Annabeth, and Annabeth just wondered why she was specifically picked out of the group. “Chase, McLean, and Beckendorf, go get the trauma!”

With that, the three of them were torn out of their trance and turned on their heels, leaving Silena and Leo to suffer under the wrath of their pregnant and hormonal resident. Leo and Silena must’ve been making quick work because when Annabeth turned back around after reaching the ambulance doors, they were already gone inside.

Piper pulled open the back doors of the ambulance and they were immediately greeted by a lady covered in blood and screaming at the top of her lungs. One of the paramedics shoved the lady off of the rig and into Annabeth’s arms, and she didn’t even have time to process anything before she was jumping into action.

“Take her!” he yelled before turning to tend to the actual patient. Annabeth took the lady by the arm and tried to lead her away from the bloody patient in the stretcher. The lady kept screaming, clearly in shock and distress, as Annabeth handed her over to a nurse to continue helping the actual patient in the ambulance.

Annabeth turned back to the stretcher, and she did a double take as she saw the state of the patient. Piper had turned still next to her, and Charles muttered a few curse words under his breath.

The patient was unconscious on the hard stretcher, and his entire body was covered in blood. There was a giant gaping hole in his chest, and it was pouring blood still. The wound was easily seven or eight centimeters in diameter, but it wasn’t what made the entire crew stop in their actions.

The real problem was that inside of the large, bleeding wound, was a hand. To be more specific, it was a paramedic’s hand.

The girl was dressed in her white uniform top and looking straight at the interns, panic clear as day in her eyes. Her ponytail was falling in front of her face and she was breathing hard as she tried her best to not fall apart into a sobbing mess.

Annabeth couldn’t believe what was going on in front of her. This guy had a severe wound in his chest, and someone had thought it was a good idea to shove an entire hand into the hole to stop the bleeding, except now the slightest move could kill the man because they didn’t know the extent of the internal injuries. She doesn’t know how someone could become a paramedic without even the slightest clue as what not to do in a trauma, such as shove a fist into a chest.

Piper blinked, staring at the girl with her hand in someone else’s body. The paramedic beside her looked just as lost, because this wasn’t something of a daily occurrence.

“Shit,” Piper hissed, eyes tracking up and down the patient’s bleeding body.

Annabeth nodded, dazed. She was internally letting out a plethora of creative curses and given that she didn’t even know where to start with this patient, she figures that it’s highly appropriate in this situation.

* * *

“James Carlson, age forty-six,” Piper ranted to Jason as they paced down the hall. “Paramedics found him unconscious and bleeding in his backyard. We don’t know the cause of injury, but he has a gaping chest wound. His wife is screaming her lungs off in the ER.”

“Vitals?” Jason asked, pushing open a swinging door.

“Tachycardic in the 140s. His blood pressure is holding steady in the 90s.”

Jason nodded, and they continued down the halls of the hospital. Piper noticed Jason seeming particularly antsy as they walked, so she looked at him and asked, “Do you have something to say?”

Jason bit his lower lip, refusing to look at her. He was trying to seem nonchalant. “You were gone when I woke up.”

“Oh, yeah. I had this thing.”

“You didn’t leave a note,” he said.

“Well, yeah… I had this thing I had to do.”

Jason scoffed under his breath, and Piper resisted smacking him. He was getting quite annoying, always wanting to know where she was. She was so happy that he understood when she explained what had happened with the pregnancy, and that she would’ve been getting an abortion if she hadn’t miscarried first. Jason, bless his heart, was only concerned that she didn’t trust him enough to tell him.

They had promised to talk to each other from that moment on, but Piper didn’t think that meant telling him every detail about her whereabouts. He seemed to think differently.

“I’m not going to constantly tell you where I am,” Piper said, not-so-subtly pushing him as she ‘avoided’ a cart sitting along the wall. “I agreed to move into your apartment, not be your trophy-wife.”

“All I’m asking is you tell me if you’re leaving at the crack of dawn.”

“Oh my god,” she muttered, rubbing her temple tiredly.

“I go to bed thinking we’re okay and not fighting, but then you end up acting crazy by the time I wake up.”

“I already told you I had a thing.”

“I’d believe you if you told me about this thing.”

“I was with Annabeth, okay? Now can we just focus on the patient?”

Jason shrugged, and the way he tried to seem cool about everything really irked Piper. Piper shoved it down her throat and pushed open the door to the trauma room holding the patient. Jason immediately got to work.

“How’s his respiratory effort?” Jason asked, pulling on gloves.

Annabeth pulled her stethoscope off of her ears and hooked it around her neck. “Absent breath sounds on the right. Air bubbling at the sight of the wound. He’s getting cyanotic.”

The guy, now conscious but still in a heavy daze, looked around confused. “My wife…”

Outside the room, his wife could be heard screaming and crying for help, unable to be consoled by the nurses in the ER.

“Let’s get him intubated. We’re going to need to place an occlusive dressing over the wound.” Jason looked at the girl standing next to Annabeth, and then his eyes trailed down to where her hand was buried in the guy’s chest. His face turned deadly. “Do you care to explain?”

The girl licked her lips, stuttering a few times. The beeping machines around her were really making her anxiety spike up. “I’m Hannah Davies.”

“I’m more concerned with why your hand is inside of my patient.”

“Oh, uh— I was trying to tamponade the wound, but my hand was the only thing that would stop the bleeding. Every time I moved my hand, he kept bleeding, and I just reacted.” She looked at Jason like a deer in headlights. “Can I move my hand?”

Jason shook his head, examining the wound. “You can’t stick your hand in a patient without knowing how they were injured!”

“I know that now,” she whimpered. “Is he going to be okay?”

Jason looked to Annabeth for an explanation. “Want to walk her through it?”

Annabeth stepped forwards, grateful for the opportunity to get her mind off of the feeling of death. “You have your finger on a major bleeder in an artery. If you move, he’ll bleed out, so we’ll have to get him to an OR as soon as possible. You’re going to have to come with.”

“I can’t—”

“—You have to,” Jason interrupted, setting the stretcher up for transfer. “You’ve won an all-expense paid trip to the OR.” He nodded to Annabeth. “Call up to the OR and let them know we’re coming.”

“Right away,” she breathed, reaching for a phone on the wall.

Wasting no time, Jason started to wheel the trauma bed out and passed by Piper, who was desperate for his attention. She was dying to get in on this surgery and he was about to leave, so she needed to approach him fast.

“How can I help?”

Jason didn’t even bat an eye before telling her, “You can go into the waiting room and stop that woman from screaming. Let us know what happened.”

“You don’t need help in the OR?” Piper asked, deflated.

“No,” Jason snapped, continuing away from her. “You have a _thing_.”

Jason rushed the guy down the hall and around a corner, leaving Piper sulking in place. As Annabeth followed Jason, Piper pulled her arm to stop her.

“Had I known you’d be stealing my surgeries, I would’ve let you stay in bed and think you were gonna die.”

“You snooze, you lose,” Annabeth snorted with a mocking smile, before trotting away after Jason. It was the first time that day she’d forgotten about the gloom of death, and she’d be damned if she let Piper steal her thunder.

Piper flipped Annabeth off as she ran away, and then she decided to go try and stop the screaming lady because she was getting really annoying and everyone was looking at them, annoyed they still hadn’t put an end to it twenty minutes after she got there.

Piper smacked the back of Charles’ head as she walked up behind him and Silena. “Why is she still screaming?”

“She won’t stop,” Charles defended, rubbing his head. “She’s been at it for over twenty minutes.”

“I think she’s in some sort of shock,” Silena said. “She can’t stop.”

“Well, you have to make it stop.” Piper crossed her arms and tilted her head as she stared. She wasn’t even trying to hide it at this point. “She’s scaring other patients.”

“How are we meant to stop her?” Silena asked.

“I don’t know but figure it out.” Piper’s pager went off and she looked down to read it. “There’s another trauma coming in, so better do it fast.”

“She’s in shock,” Silena repeated. “She can’t just stop.”

“Well, shock her again,” Piper said, exasperated. “Just make it stop.”

Charles pursed his lips, deep in thought. “I have an idea.”

“By all means, go ahead,” Piper signaled. “Just don’t kill her.”

“She’s right in front of you,” Silena hissed.

“I doubt she can hear me over her piercing screams.” Piper addressed Charles. “Are you going to do something?”

Charles smiled. “Just wait.” And then, he grabbed her by both shoulders, leaning in close to scream directly in her face in retaliation. His scream was admittedly louder than hers, and Piper was about to snap at him because _what the actual fuck was that_ , but then she realized it stopped.

“There,” he finished, brushing off his hands in the air. “She stopped.”

Piper and Silena looked at him, eyes wide. The lady’s mouth was hanging open, but no sound was coming out. Dear lord, it looked like Charles broke her.

“Now,” Charles said, smiling sweetly. “Can you tell me what happened to your husband?”

The lady only whimpered, and a strained sound came out of her throat. She ended up reaching forward and laying her head onto Charles’ chest, which he didn’t appreciate very much.

“Do you need to sit down?” Charles asked, already moving the lady backwards and helping settle her down onto a vacant hospital bed. “Let’s get her a change of clothes,” he said to one of the nurses passing by.

The lady was shaking, and she was trying to speak to Charles, but there was still no sound coming out. “I–”

Charles bent down to look her in the eyes. “Just breathe. Try to talk me through what happened.”

“It— it was so…”

“It was so…?” he pressed.

The lady looked extremely pale and Charles thought she was about to pass out for a second. “I’m going to kill— you tell my husband I’m going to murder him if he didn’t murder himself first.”

“The shock seems to be wearing off,” Piper muttered into Charles’ ear.

“And anger’s setting in,” Silena whispered in the other as though the lady wasn’t right in front of them.

“Ma’am,” Charles said, ushering Piper and Silena off of him. “Please just try and explain what happened. It’ll help us know what to expect when we start operating.”

“My husband and his friend are morons,” she stage whispered. Someone called out a name amongst the noisy ER, and the girl perked up on the bed. “I’m over here, moron!” she yelled through the room in response to the name.

A man in green overalls appeared in front of the hanging curtain, and he looked pretty concerned for the lady Charles was watching over. Charles himself was getting pretty confused with so many people around.

“There you are!” The guy stepped closer to the base of the hospital bed the lady was sitting on. “How’s James doing?”

“He’s bleeding out, thanks to you!” she yelled. Charles just watched the exchange, curious. “The paramedic stuck her entire hand inside of him!”

“It’s not my fault!”

“You two were being idiots! It is your fault! If you hadn’t been freaking morons, then you wouldn’t have been playing like two eight year olds!”

“We were _reenacting_!” the guy stressed.

“ _Playing_!” She clenched her fist. “You built a toy and you were pretending to be in World War II, and now he’s almost dead!"

Charles’ brain was going a million miles per hour to keep up with this conversation. From what he had gathered, the two guys were building something to play… World War II? “Can someone explain exactly what happened?”

“I’ll tell you what happened!” The lady screeched before continuing. “My husband and his best friend built a fucking giant-ass gun!”

“It was a bazooka!” he argued back. “It was the best weapon to exist during all of World War II and it was used by the allied powers! Don’t disrespect the M981 Bazooka by calling it a gun!”

“They put on their stupid play costumes and he shot my husband with the bazooka in my backyard!”

“We followed the instructions!”

“You built a bazooka in my backyard! That is the opposite of following instructions!”

“We loaded it properly!”

“Clearly you didn’t because it didn’t work! You sent my husband to stand in front of it and check it out, and you shot him in the chest! The toy decided to work the second that my husband stepped in front of it!”

“It’s not a toy!”

“A _TOY_!”

Charles swallowed roughly, his eyes shooting back and forth between the two people arguing. Something wasn’t quite sitting right with him. A bazooka was a weapon used in World War II, and it was explosive. There hadn’t been an explosion reported during the incident, so that meant that it was still…

“He shot himself with a bazooka?” Charles asked, panic setting in.

“Yeah,” the lady seethed. “Like two morons.

“Was there an explosion?” Charles asked.

“No,” the guy said, scrunching his forehead. “Why?”

Charles cursed under his breath. No explosion meant that it hadn’t gone off yet. There was an explosive device inside of the body cavity because there was no exit wound, and if it was unstable and decided to detonate inside of the OR…

“We need to warn them,” Charles said, immediately turning around, ignoring the woman’s confused expression.

“Warn them about what?” Piper asked, quickly moving out of Charles’ way as he passed and then following him.

“The thing is still inside of him, and he’s in the OR. The OR’s right above the oxygen tanks, and anyone who took chemistry would know that oxygen acts as a fuel! It’ll catch the whole hospital on fire!”

Piper’s mouth dropped open, and she tried to ask a question, but Charles was already long gone, twisting around the hospital and shoving nurses out of the way to get to the OR before they began the operation.

If that thing decided to explode, everyone in that operating room was without a doubt dead, and he _needed_ to get there before that happened.

* * *

Annabeth let the scrub nurses help put her gloves on, and her eyes drifted over to the paramedic standing in the OR. The poor girl still had her hand inside of the wound and she looked downright terrified. One wrong move and he would bleed out, which would be very ironic since they were just about to start the surgery.

“You doing okay there?” Annabeth asked, lifting her face mask.

“Oh, uh.” The paramedic laughed nervously. “I’m losing feeling in my hand, and human organs are squishier than I expected, but I’ll survive.”

“Good, because he won’t if you move,” Annabeth said, stepping next to her and waiting for Jason to scrub in.

“Am I even allowed to be in here?”

“Well, you can’t really move until we have everything under control. It shouldn’t be too long from now,” Annabeth reassured. “Once Dr. Grace gets here, we’ll have you remove your hand and you’ll be free to go.”

“That’s good. I don’t think I know enough medicine to be allowed in an OR anyways. I’ve only been a paramedic for two weeks now.”

“I haven’t been doing this long either,” Annabeth said, holding her hands above the sterile field.

“Learning on the job’s always exciting, right?”

Annabeth smiled, but it wasn’t seen behind the mask, so she just went back to her own mind. Jason had said they were going to perform a thoracotomy, so she as trying to remember the steps for it in case he asked. If she was lucky, maybe she would be able to even perform part of the procedure herself. That’s what she calls a good day.

Jason walked into the room and was immediately pampered by the nurses. He shrugged on the surgical gown and then the gloves followed. “Okay, Dr. Chase. Are we ready?”

“Yes sir,” she answered, gesturing towards the paramedic. “Hannah is gowned and ready to go.”

Jason accosted the table, stepping into the lead surgeon’s position. “When we begin, we’re going to have Hannah remove her hand. From there, Dr. Chase is going to clamp the bleeder once we get more exposure.”

A pager went off in the room, and a nurse picked it up. “It’s Dr. Beckendorf.”

“He can wait.” Jason looked to a scrub nurse. “Let’s begin. Scalpel, please.”

The pager went off again, and Jason just looked at it until it stopped, and then he moved the scalpel down to make the initial incision. Annabeth’s eyes tracked his every move, and she watched as his steady hand pressed the blade to the skin. The blade pressed, and pressed, and then—

“Stop!”

Chares burst into the OR, holding an untied mask over his mouth. He was bent over himself, huffing as he pressed his hands onto his knees like he was about to puke from the efforts of running across the entire hospital. “I– I need to speak with you.”

“Beckendorf,” Jason said, glaring at him. “I am about to operate on this man. I’m a bit preoccupied.”

“You want to speak with me.” Charles looked directly into Jason’s eyes, and his face told Jason that something was severely wrong. “It’s important.”

Jason sighed and handed the scalpel to Annabeth across the table, stepping away from the patient. As he walked to Charles, he was nearly growling. “You just pulled me away from my patient, so you better have a damn good reason.”

“The wound. Did it go all the way through the body?” Charles spoke in a hushed whisper.

“Dr. Beckendorf, what is this about?” Jason seethed, throwing a glance to the audience in his OR.

“Did the patient have an exit wound?”

“It was only an entry. No exit.”

“There’s an explosive device inside of him.”

Jason choked on air. “ _What_?”

“The device that hurt him– it was a bazooka, and it was poorly built. When he got shot with it, the device didn’t go through, so it’s still inside of him.”

“There is a _bomb_ inside of my patient?”

“I think so.”

Jason breathed in and turned his body to face the paramedic. “Hannah. What do you feel inside of the patient?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is your hand touching anything hard?”

Annabeth tilted her head. “Hard?”

“What type of hard?” the paramedic questioned.

“Is your hand touching anything that feels like metal?”

“I– I’m not sure.” The paramedic started to move her hand the tiniest bit and Jason nearly had an aneurysm from the anxiety of it.

“Don’t move your hand,” he tried, but failed, to say calmly. “Just tell me what you feel inside of the patient.”

“Dr. Grace?” Annabeth bit her lower lip. “What’s going on?”

Jason held a hand to silence her, looking at the paramedic still. “What do you feel?”

The girl looked like she’d seen a ghost. “I think I feel something a bit hard by my fingers.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Charles grit through is teeth.

“What?” the paramedic asked.

Jason pursed his lips. “I need you not to move. You can’t move even a millimeter.”

“You’re scaring me,” the girl breathed, jittering nervously. “What’s going on?”

“You’re going to be fine.” Jason motioned Annabeth to come closer to him. “Dr. Chase.”

Annabeth dropped the scalpel and slowly worked around the pool of doctors in the room, stopping in front of him so he could speak slowly. “What is it?” she murmured.

“I need you walk out of here calmly. Do not run. You’re going to go find a charge nurse and let them know that we have a code black.”

Annabeth’s eyes widened. “A code black?”

“Yes. You are going to tell them that I am sure, and then you are going to have them call the bomb squad.”

“I don’t understand. Where is the bomb?”

Jason sighed, and Annabeth’s blood ran cold. Suddenly, she knew her premonition about the day might have been coming true.

“It’s inside of the patient.”

* * *

Annabeth stood outside of the OR, chewing nervously on her bottom lip as the group of nurses chattered about the situation nervously. Charles was standing next to her, arms crossed, and practically shaking from frustration, or nerves, or both.

Annabeth just couldn’t believe that this was actually happening. There was a bomb inside of the patient, and they had nearly cut the patient open with a girl’s hand inside all while sitting directly over giant oxygen supplies that ran through the hospital. One wrong move and everything would be blown to shit. Today felt like a day of death, and she told people, and somehow, she was still here within thirty feet of a bomb.

“Why was her hand even in there in the first place?” Charles asked to no one in particular, uncrossing his arms and beginning to pace back and forth in circles. “She’s literally touching a bomb with her fingers! Who’s even dumb enough to do that!?”

Chills ran through Annabeth’s body. “She didn’t know, Charles.”

“Any sane human being wouldn’t stick their hand inside of someone else’s body.”

Annabeth managed a pained snort.

“Shut up, Chase. You know what I meant.”

“I know.” Annabeth leaned against the wall. “She just made a mistake.”

“This mistake might just cost her life.”

Annabeth couldn’t even say anything back because he was right. This girl was just trying to save a life and now she might lose her own life because of it.

Jason carefully opened the door and Annabeth moved away from the wall to give him space. People immediately began crowding around him to hear what the plan was from this moment on.

“What do we do?” Annabeth asked.

“I go back in,” Jason answered. “You guys leave. All of you.”

“But–”

“No buts. I’m not going to put an entire hospital personnel in danger. There’s no need for all of us to be there, so I suggest you all get out while you still can.”

People were clearly not fond with the thought of dying in a bombing, clearly shown as people wasted no time in turning around and working their way down the hall.

“You coming, Annabeth?” Charles asked, pausing to wait for her.

Annabeth hesitated. She really didn’t want to be close to a bomb, especially not while also in close proximity to a giant supply of oxygen. Annabeth was not thrilled with the idea of dying, but she took the Hippocratic oath. She vowed to always save a life, and this guy wasn’t going to live unless he had doctors willing to put their lives in danger to save his.

Besides, it wasn’t like it was threatening to explode at the moment. She didn’t feel like she was going to die right this instant, and that had to count for something. This guy needed his doctors, and Annabeth would want someone to be there for her if she was in his position.

Annabeth shook her head no.

“Your loss,” Charles said, turning to follow the rest of the group down the hall and away from the OR.

“You need other doctors there,” Annabeth said to Jason in explanation. “I can help.”

“All I need is an anesthesiologist to keep him under. I’ll manage the rest on my own.”

Annabeth’s heart beat hard in her chest. This was her moment to turn back, to save herself from what could possibly be the end of her life if anything went wrong. She should’ve retracted her offer and turned away, but instead she found herself stepping closer.

“I want to help.”

Jason sighed. “Fine, but you stay outside until the bomb squad arrives. There’s no reason for you to put yourself in danger otherwise.”

Annabeth nodded, and the few people that had decided to stay did so too. They were doctors, and they saved lives. It was what they did, and it was what Annabeth was going to do again. She was safe for now, and everything would be just fine.

Or so she hoped.

* * *

Inside of the OR, the paramedic stared directly at the hole her hand was shoved inside. She was barely keeping calm and she wanted to badly to scream and hide, but if she even so much as moved a muscle, she could bring the entire hospital down with her.

Jason had just left to talk to the bomb squad, telling them about the extent of the patient’s injuries, so the girl was left in the room alone with the anesthesiologist. Every cell in her body was screaming for her to get out, but she couldn’t. She’d kill too many people, and–

“What’s your name?” the anesthesiologist asked. He squeezed the bag on the patient’s face to force him to breathe.

“Uh– Hannah,” she squeaked, eyes still glued to the incision.

“My name’s Octavian. I figured we should be on a first name basis by this point.”

“Oh.”

“Did you know that the bomb squad calls people pink mist when they blow up?”

“What?”

“Pink mist. It’s because when a human explodes, their organs and blood splatters all over the place, similar to a mist. It’s a mist of blood.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Octavian smiled, and the girl finally looked up, her bones turning to lead. “I’m just telling you that anyone in range of a bomb when it explodes ends up blown into a million pieces. I’m not sure about you, but I don’t want to be blown up.”

“I don’t either,” the girl cried out, whimpering slightly.

“You turn into a red liquid. Every piece of who you are disappears. You’re nothing more than bits and pieces of flesh, bones, and blood.” Another reluctant squeeze of the bag.

“Please stop,” she said. The last thing she wanted to talk about was the bomb exploding while she was in here. Tears ran down her face, and she really wished someone else was in the room with her.

“It’s just— Pink mist. You’re not even a person anymore.” Octavian looked down at his own hand wistfully, watching himself as he pressed the bag down rhythmically. He looked to the paramedic maliciously. His eyes screamed a warning to the paramedic. “Take this.”

The girl’s heart stopped. “What?”

“Go ahead,” Octavian ushered, hushed. He tried to move the ambu-bag closer to the girl’s hand. “Just grab it.”

The paramedic didn’t know where he was going with this, so she unknowingly grabbed it, too scared to speak out against him. Once it was in her hands, Octavian continued to speak.

“I want you to just squeeze it,” he said, letting his grip loosen around the bag. “Squeeze it in even beats, every few seconds.”

She did as she was told while Octavian watched, unaware of her actions.

“Not too fast,” he corrected. Once she slowed, he nodded. “There you go.”

Octavian took a step back from the table, encouraging the paramedic. “You’re doing great.”

The girl’s mouth fell open the slightest bit as she squeezed the bag in even intervals. Her other hand was still inside of the patient, and she couldn’t stop the shake of her hand inside of him. She just watched as she went, scared she would mess up, but then when she looked back up, Octavian was near the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked, her eyes wide and glossy.

Octavian reached for the handle slowly, as though he didn’t want to frighten a deer. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be pink mist.”

She panicked. “No, wait—”

“You’re going to be pink mist,” he said. “There’s no reason for me to be a pink mist too. I’ve got a family. Keep squeezing, one, two.”

“Octavian—”

“You’ll be okay,” he said. “It’ll be a quick death. I doubt you’ll feel a thing.”

With a last, failed attempt at a comforting grin, Octavian was out the door and the paramedic was left struggling to keep herself and the patient alive.

* * *

“The poor guy,” Annabeth mumbled to Piper, leaning against the glass window and watching Jason talk to the bomb squad about methods of taking the device out. “I don’t know how they’re going to get it out without killing both the patient and Hannah.”

Piper shrugged, fidgeting with her surgical gown. “They’re kicking everyone out of the hospital. I was just operating with Percy and they told us to leave.”

“He listened?” Annabeth asked, confused. Percy didn’t seem like the type of person to leave someone’s life hanging in an attempt to save his own. He was just too— well, she didn’t want to say loyal because he definitely wasn’t to her, but he was a loyal person. He was too good of a surgeon to leave someone with their head cracked open.

“No. He stayed.” Piper scrunched her nose. “He just kicked me and everyone else out.”

“Yeah, that sounds more like him.”

Piper leaned her head against Annabeth’s shoulder. “This is a horrifying day.”

“We’re a few doors down from a bomb,” Annabeth agreed. “I shouldn’t have come to work today.”

“Oh, Annabeth. You’re not going to die. I still think you’re just being dramatic.”

“It can’t be a coincidence that there’s a bomb in my OR the same day I swear up and down that I’m going to die.”

“No, that’s exactly what it is.” Piper bonked Annabeth’s head with her fist. “You are perfectly safe right now. You’re not going to die.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“I’m always right.”

“No you’re not.” Annabeth scoffed. “In fact, I think that statement itself was very wrong.”

“I see how it is, Dr. Chase.”

“Don’t call me Dr. Chase.”

Piper shrugged, facing her body towards the OR door. “I wonder what’s going on in there right now.”

“They’re probably just standing there, all decked out in bomb squad uniform.”

Piper stayed silent for a second and then she was pushing herself off the wall to go check. “I wanna see.”

“Piper,” Annabeth warned, following after. “They told us to stay away.”

“Please. Being twenty feet away is not going to make a difference in the severity of the blast.”

Annabeth made a noise of protest after her but followed her down the hall when the bomb squad wasn’t watching. “We still aren’t supposed to be here or else they’ll—"

Piper paused in her tracks and Annabeth nearly ran into her back. “Is it just me or is the paramedic having a panic attack?”

“ _What_?” Annabeth shoved Piper aside to peep through the window, and true to Piper’s words, the paramedic was breathing hard and crying. What really caught Annabeth’s attention though was the fact that she was alone in the room. “The anesthesiologist is gone.”

“Is he supposed to be there?”

“Yes!” Annabeth took another look. “She’s squeezing the ambu-bag by herself.”

“Where did the other guy go?”

Annabeth didn’t answer, opting instead to push open the door slowly, trying her best not to startle the girl. The door swung open almost imperceptibly, and the only noise really to be heard was the steady hiss of the bag being squeezed over the patient’s face.

“Hannah,” Annabeth said cautiously. “Where’d the anesthesiologist go?”

Annabeth could see the girl trembling from across the room as she squeezed the bag again. “He left. He, uh, said that he didn’t want to die, so he left me here.”

“Hannah,” Annabeth said in warning as she watched the girl struggle with her thoughts.

“I think I’m going to take my hand out now,” she said, swallowing visibly. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“You can’t take your hand out,” Annabeth warned, treading closer to the table. “If you move, it’ll explode.”

“I can’t,” she whined, tears trailing down her face. “I’m ready to go home now.”

Annabeth walked around the table and pressed a comforting hand to her back as Piper took the bag from the paramedic’s hand and took over squeezing it. “You’re going to be okay. Just stay steady and—”

“I can’t!” she wailed, breathing heavily. “I don’t want to die!”

“You cannot move,” Annabeth said harshly. “Do not move your hand.”

“I’m going to leave,” she said, nodding and licking her lips. “I’m not meant to do this. I’m only twenty-two. I’m not supposed to die yet.”

Piper squeezed the bag, and called over her shoulder, “We need some help in here!” but Annabeth could only hear the ringing in her ears as she tried to calm the paramedic. If the girl kept freaking out, she might do something she’d regret, and it might explode, which is the last thing anyone wanted.

“You’re not going to die,” Annabeth reassured. “As long as you keep your hand steady, you are going to be just fine."

The paramedic kept crying, fighting the instinct to rip her hand away from the body. Jason and the bomb squad came running into the room at Piper’s call, and Piper explained what was going on, but Annabeth kept herself focused on the girl.

“I’m going to take my hand out now,” she repeated, hyperventilating.

“Hannah,” Jason said, holding a hand up. “You’re almost done. Just a little while longer and then you can take your hand out.”

“I can’t wait a little while longer,” she said. “I need to leave now.”

“You’re the only thing keeping him from bleeding out,” Annabeth tried.

“No! I am only twenty-two years old! I’m not supposed to be here!”

“She’s panicking,” a guy from the bomb squad said over his shoulder. “We need to clear the room now.”

“I’m not leaving,” Annabeth said.

“Dr. Chase–”

“I’m not leaving her!” she repeated more aggressively, holding her hand over the paramedic’s hand to keep it steady. There was tremor after tremor, and the paramedic’s face had a sheen of nervous sweat.

“Dr. Grace,” the guy from the bomb squad said.

“She’s my intern,” Jason said. “I’ll handle it.”

Annabeth tried to soothe the girl. “You’re almost done. Don’t move.”

“I can’t do this!” she cried.

“You’re okay—”

“ _Please!”_

“Don’t move—”

“I need to leave!”

“Calm down, Hannah,” Jason said.

“No! I have to move my hand now.”

“Hannah, look at me,” Annabeth said.

“No, no, no!” The paramedic was shaking her head and trembling in place, gasping for breaths as people rambled around her.

Annabeth was still pressing her hand over Hannah’s, her hand being the only thing keeping her from ripping her hand from out of the body cavity. “You need to calm down, Hannah.”

“I can’t!” Her eyes were scrunched close and she kept shaking her head in a trance. “It has to come out!”

“Hannah—”

“I have to take it out!”

“Just stay in there a little while longer,” Jason tried, his own panic rising as the paramedic continued to cry.

“I have to take it out! I have to!”

“No, Hannah—”

“I have to!”

Time slowed and stopped, and then—

The paramedic was ripping her hand out of the body cavity, and Annabeth was suddenly no longer in control of her actions.

Hannah yanked her hand away with a sob torn from her throat, and everyone in the OR dropped to the ground in an attempt to save themselves as Hannah continued out of the room, a bawling mess. Everyone hit the ground with a hard pang and their eyes shut tight, waiting for the blast that would wipe them out, but it never came.

When the group opened their eyes, looking for the expected blast that never happened, they slowly worked their way up off the ground to assess the damage and figure out why it hadn’t exploded, or to _leave the room_. That’s when they noticed Annabeth, lips slightly parted as she panted, just realizing the severity of her actions.

Annabeth’s hand was inside of the body, her fingertips wrapped carefully around the tip of the bomb. When Hannah moved her hand, Annabeth had replaced it with her own, and it was like she wasn’t in control of her own body. It was Annabeth now, holding the bomb and saving the guys life, except it now meant that she wouldn’t be getting out of this alive.

Annabeth had no idea what she had just done.

The group around her chattered nervously, asking her if she was okay, but she couldn’t answer. The only thing running through her mind was why? Why did this happen today? Why did she shove her hand into a bomb? Why did she come to work at all?

She knew now that her intuition had been right. This morning, her brain had tried to warn her in every way possible. There was something inside of her that told her today was the last day she would spend alive. Something was bound to go wrong, and she locked it into place the second she decided to let Piper talk her into going to work.

Her heart pounded and blood rushed through her ears. She could feel the curvature of the object between her fingers, and she couldn’t breathe. The slightest move on her part would kill her. It was a terrifying moment, and she wanted to cry, but it wasn’t quite as bad as she had expected.

It wasn’t as bad because she found something much worse.

She didn’t regret it. Everyone else in the room had the sense to drop to the ground the second that girl moved her hand, but Annabeth didn’t. Annabeth chose to stick her hand into a ticking time-bomb, and she didn’t care. She didn’t an ounce of worry or regret. She wasn’t scared of the death that was now looming directly in front of her face, and there was nothing scarier than the thought that maybe she was okay with dying.

This morning, she told herself she was going to die.

She let people talk her out of it. She came to work, she stayed in the hospital once she knew there was a bomb, and now she was standing in the OR holding the bomb steady herself. Annabeth didn’t regret a single choice. She’d do them all a million times over again.

Here she was, staring death in the face. The monitors in the room went off as the guy began to bleed some more, and the steady pumping of the ambu-bag was blaring in her ears. Everything was far away and right in front of her at the same time.

Annabeth knew she was going to die. Standing here holding a bomb in her hands, she found that maybe she was okay with that.

Why was she okay with that?

Annabeth stared down at her hand, concentrating on not moving a muscle. Her mind was a total mess and her outward reactions were no better. She thinks she might be crying, but she doesn’t have a specific reason for it. She supposed it might’ve just been a mix of everything that’s been going on, and she’d think over every single one of them if everything wasn’t drowned out in her mind except this.

_What had she just done?_


	5. Chapter 5

Annabeth stared wide-eyed at the scene in front of her.

_What did she do?_

Her hand was _inside_ the patient, and she was going to die. She should've known better than to get herself into this situation. She told herself she was going to die, and it was unfolding right before her.

_A sixth sense._

She felt light-headed, her whole world threatening to topple over, sending her to the floor and the OR exploding into bits of flaming fragments. She could almost imagine it, the way she'll erupt into searing pain only to have her life swept away by the force of the blast.

The only thing keeping that image from becoming a reality was herself. Her life, and everyone else's lives around her, relied on her and her only.

Annabeth was only brought out of her deep reverie as the guy from the bomb squad wrapped his arms around her torso, gently forcing a heavy jacket onto her chest, not that it would do anything to protect her from the blast. She was trembling, and the guy was trying his best not to startle her as he secured the straps, but she couldn't stop.

She looked up, anywhere that wasn't directly at the bomb cavity, and she was met with Piper's alarmed eyes, staring up at her with genuine concern and something else she couldn't read. Annabeth couldn't be bothered to even try to read Piper's emotions; she could barely read her own.

"Shoving your hand in there was the dumbest thing you could do," the guy whispered into her ear with a gravelly voice, tugging on her thick jacket to make sure it would stay in place.

An icy sense of dread filled her from head to toe. It was obvious the guy was trying to lighten the mood, but it only darkened her thoughts. "You don't think I know that?" she just barely managed to squeak out.

"Well, it was," Piper added, her demeanor broken down. "You— you could _die!_ "

"I know that," she hissed, focusing so, _so_ hard on not moving a single muscle. "You have no idea just how aware I am of that. Now, there is a bomb squad guy whose name I don't even _know_ strapping a flak jacket to my boobs. Now is not the time to make me feel worse than I already do."

"You're going to be okay," the guy behind her soothed. "Just take deep breaths. I'll make sure you get through this."

"Hm." Annabeth couldn't even find words to express what she was feeling. She did know, however, that she wasn't going to be getting through this. She always knew. "What's your name?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Odds are that we're going to be dying together," she said with a subtle shake to her voice. "I should at least know your name."

"I'm Ethan."

"Ethan," she repeated, laughter taking over. She was really a delusional mess, but she didn't know one she was _supposed_ to act in a situation like this, so she'll let it slide. "I'm sorry for getting you into this mess."

"You don't need to be sorry, because we're going to get out."

Annabeth could barely prevent the breath of disbelief from escaping her lips. She had every reason to be sorry. They were here because of her, and it was the end of their lives as well as hers.

Sorry doesn't even begin to cover it.

"I had a feeling—"

" _Enough_ with the feeling!" Piper pleaded. "Now is not the time!"

"I am going to die! You can't tell me that I didn't know that because I've been saying it all day, and now it's happening." Annabeth bit her lower lip harshly, enjoying the sharp stab of pain it caused her as her teeth imprinted into the skin. It made her feel more prepared for what was surely to come, for some reason. "I had a feeling."

"That's all it is," Piper said. "A feeling. It hasn't happened. You are standing here, alive, and that means that we can still get you out. If you're not dead, you're alive and we will all make it through this, so stop talking about your fucking _feelings_ because I don't care to hear about them anymore."

Annabeth breathed deeply, closing her eyes. She kept them shut for a long time, her entire focus on not moving. It was funny how the moment she needed to stay still the most was when her body wanted to twitch. She didn't want to think about what would happen if she moved, but it began to blur the corners of her mind once again.

Annabeth only opened her eyes again when the door in front of her was swinging open and Jason was walking back inside, eyes trained directly onto Piper, who never once left her side.

"You need to go," he said lowly once he reached Piper's side, as though Annabeth wouldn't hear him in a silent, echoing operating room. "It's dangerous here."

"I'm not leaving." Piper didn't even look at him to speak.

"I don't want you to get hurt."

"I'm not leaving," she said again, more malice and force lining her voice. Annabeth appreciated that Piper didn't want to leave her alone. Piper was too good to die. She didn't deserve the same fate as Annabeth.

"Go," Annabeth said before Jason could argue with Piper. "We don't both have to do this. One life lost is better than two."

"That's why I can't leave! I'm not going to let you die! You're twenty-six and you deserve so much, and you can't die. Not yet. You need to become a surgeon— I have to watch you take your oral boards and turn into a blubbering mess, because you are my best friend and you cannot _die._ " Piper glanced to Jason for a second. "Do what you want, but I'm not leaving."

Jason groaned, unable to stifle his annoyance. "Piper—"

"She is my _person._ I'm staying." Piper gave Annabeth a tiny smile, and Annabeth's eyes rimmed with tears. She couldn't let Piper do this.

"Exactly," Annabeth said. "You're my person, and I need you to be okay. Please. You have to go."

"What? No!"

"Piper—"

"I'm not leaving!"

"There is no reason for the two of us to be dead." Annabeth swallowed roughly. "Go. I'll be okay."

"I don't want you to die," Piper pleaded.

"That's what Ethan's here for," she said. "It's his job to keep me safe. It's your job to keep _you_ safe, so do it."

"Where do you expect me to go?" Piper aggressively squeezed the ambu-bag. "I have nowhere to go."

"Go help Dr. Jackson," Jason offered, taking the bag from her hand. "Help him finish his surgery."

Piper looked at Annabeth for approval, stress clear as day in her eyes. She didn't want to leave, which is exactly why she had to. Piper was a good friend. She deserved the world.

"Go," Annabeth said, giving Piper the approval she needed, and then Piper was walking out of the OR slowly, reluctant. She shot a glance over her shoulder, gave Annabeth a single lift of her lips, and then she was gone. It felt too certain for Annabeth.

"So," Annabeth whimpered once the door shut, her teeth clenching together to stop the uncontrollable shiver. "We have a plan, right? You say you want to get me out of this, but we need a plan, so what is it?"

Ethan nodded at her once, and her eyes locked to his, she began to listen as he told her his plan.

* * *

Piper pushed the door to Percy's OR open with much more force than intended, ready to break apart. Her best friend was stuck in an OR with a bomb clenched in her hand, and all Piper could do was stand and watch the guy who broke Annabeth's heart do brain surgery, and that _sucked ass._

Percy looked up, startled by the dramatic entrance, and as his eyes fell back to the open skull in front of him, he said, "You shouldn't be here, McLean."

"Well, I am, so where do you need me?" Piper couldn't bring herself to look at him; her hatred for the guy standing in front of her was astronomical, but he was deep inside of a patient's brain, and once look at Piper would let him know something was severely wrong.

He couldn't find out, Piper decided. It posed too much of a risk to the patient that was already near death, his brain being poked and prodded to stop the bleeding.

"I need you outside the OR," Percy said, his breathing controlled as he kept his fingers steady. "You need to leave."

"I'm not leaving." Piper was feeling a lot like a broken record. She couldn't just sit there feeling _useless._ She had to do something, even if that was suffocate on Percy's arrogance.

" _McLean._ "

"I'm here to help," she snapped, letting one of the nurses that stayed behind help her into her surgical gown. She did not have the patience to deal with Percy today. "Let me help."

Percy's mouth wasn't visible beneath his mask, but she strongly suspected that he pursed his lips at her antics. Still, he didn't fight her as she stepped towards the table, which was a good thing because she was about to start throwing hands. "How's Hannah doing?"

"Hannah?"

Percy raised an eyebrow, looking at her questioningly. "The paramedic with the bomb."

"Oh." Piper's breath caught in her throat. "She's managing."

"Why did you hesitate?"

"It's just— high tense situations," Piper lied, hoping he would let it go.

"Mhm." Percy went back to what he was doing before, and Piper watched silently until he spoke up again a few minutes later. "Are there any updates on the situation?"

_Yes._

_Annabeth was the one with the bomb._

"No," she said instead. "Nothing new."

"At least it's not getting worse," Percy said absentmindedly, already losing interest in the conversation.

Yeah, right.

It was definitely getting worse. It was getting worse as in Annabeth grabbed the bomb and was likely going to die, and she had been kicked out of the OR by her boyfriend against her will, and now no one has any idea what's going to happen. Everything's just dandy.

Piper made a sound of disagreement, but he didn't call her out on it. He was either too used to her short temper or he didn't hear her, but either way, she wasn't going to tell him. He thought everything was going fine, and she was content to keep it like that as long as possible.

Oh, but if only he knew that it was so much worse than he was aware of.

* * *

"We have a problem."

Annabeth shut her eyes tight, holding back a cry. How much worse could this situation get? She didn't even want to know at this point.

"We have to move."

Annabeth laughed, but there wasn't an ounce of humor in her voice. " _What?_ "

"The oxygen tanks are right underneath the OR," Ethan said.

It started up again. The images inside her sprang back to life, because with only one sentence, she realized how much trouble she was really in.

She really hoped she was wrong. "When you say we have to move, you mean…"

"I mean that if the bomb goes off in here, it'll bring the entire hospital down with it. The oxygen tanks will explode and ignite everything, so we have to go to another OR further away from the main line."

She grit her teeth. Lovely. Perfect. Spectacular. "How am I supposed to move to another OR without setting it off?"

"Very carefully," he answered, which did nothing to clarify how they would actually manage it. He probably didn't know himself— it's not like something like this has actually ever happened before.

It was ironic. Oxygen. A basic element. Atomic number of eight. One of the seven diatomic molecules. An integral part of life.

How could something so essential to life mean the end of hers?

"I'm not going to like this, am I?"

Ethan looked empathetic, and then she _knew_ she was not going to like this.

"So I can't move any of my fingers even a _millimeter_ , but you expect us to be able to get this entire gurney out of here?'

"It's our safest option," Jason, who had been silent in the corner, interjected. "We'll move slow. You can do it, Chase."

"Right," she said distantly.

"We have to move quick," Ethan warned. "Are you ready?"

Annabeth snorted, staring death in the face. "Are you being serious?"

Ethan took her response as answer enough, already moving towards the gurney with a few other people, all prepared to move. From that point on, it felt like everything was floating by all too fast. As the group started to wheel her out of the room, inch by inch, she could barely feel herself.

She did nothing but put one foot in front of the other. Keeping herself steady while walking next to a moving gurney with a bomb inside of a patient was difficult— but she wasn't there anymore.

There was a ringing in her ears that began to grow, and everything narrowed to her. The only thing that existed was her and the bomb threatening everything she'd worked to accomplish and become.

The wheels of the gurney creaked with each rotation as they left the room and started down the hall in the opposite direction of the oxygen tanks. Annabeth had no idea how long she walked, dragging her feet and suppressing the tremors of her hand, but it wasn't long enough once Ethan started talking her through the process.

"When we get there," he said, voice dull as though to not startle a wild animal, "Dr. Grace is going to have everything ready. The device is shaped like a rocket, eight inches long. When you're ready, you're going to need to wrap your hand around the device—"

"And pull it out," she finished.

"You have to keep it level," he warned, still carefully pushing the gurney along the floor with the rest of the bomb squad. "If it's not level, we risk it going off."

"I'll keep it level," she whispered, still in a trance-like state.

They continued towards the end of the hall, and someone near her was whispering words of encouragement, and she was trying so hard not to move. They were about halfway there, and it was going smoothly so far, and she was just starting to think that they could get there without commotion, but then—

"What are you guys _doing_?" Piper hissed, holding a door open right in front of the gurney's path.

Annabeth tensed, nearly bursting into tears on the spot because if she had popped out a second later, there was a very good chance she would've hit the gurney, and it would've been endgame.

"What's going on?" she asked again, dancing around nervously. Her voice was hushed, and Annabeth figured it had something to do with whoever might've been listening from inside the room. Her brain screamed _Percy._

"We're moving away from the main oxygen line," Annabeth said lightly. "You know, cause it might blow up and we'll all die."

Piper opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by Ethan.

"Dr. Grace told you to leave," he said, hushed and stern. "Get out of here."

"Dr. Grace isn't here, is he?" she sneered, looking to Annabeth. "Are you okay?"

"I'm trying to be."

"You guys are just going to… pull it out?"

"That's the plan," Annabeth said.

Piper paused, thinking, and then she stepped closer to them, letting the door shut behind her. "I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not," Ethan warned. "You need to leave."

Piper looked at Annabeth, and a silent message passed through them. Annabeth didn't want to be alone, and Piper knew that, even if Annabeth was too stubborn to say it. Piper was willing to stay anyways.

Ethan looked between the two of them, and he knew that there was no winning, so he motioned towards the wall for Piper to stand against as they passed through. "You're not coming into the OR with us."

Piper stuck her chin up but stayed silent, deciding not to push her luck.

Annabeth became desperate again as they started walking, needing something to distract her from the moment at hand.

"Tell me something," Annabeth said pleadingly to Piper.

Piper's lips parted slightly, but she had no response. Nothing could flood her mind at such a moment. Annabeth was literally pressed against a bomb, and Piper did _not_ want to talk about her own life right now. She doesn't know how Annabeth does.

"Anything. _Please._ "

Piper licked her lips, eyes flicking around the room, and then she decided on, "Jason told me he loves me."

Annabeth nodded frantically, going along with it. "Okay. What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything— he thought I was sleeping, and he whispered it to me. I didn't know what to tell him."

The distraction wasn't working. Instead, it was increasing that tension boiling deep in her gut, telling her to pay attention to the task at hand or they would all be paying for it. Every second she spent thinking of anything else made her more anxious because it was always there, lying just beneath the surface.

Still, she tried to carry on.

"Jason loves you," she repeated. "You should tell him you love him too."

"I'm not sure if I'm ready for that." From the way Piper was standing, it was clear she was still just as focused on the bomb in the patient than their conversation. "I mean, he thought I was asleep. He doesn't know I know."

"I think you love him too," Annabeth said. "You should tell him, while you still can."

"Stop that," Piper complained, voice almost imperceptibly low. "You're going to be just fine."

"I guess we'll find out," Annabeth joked. "If not, I—"

Annabeth's stomach lurched as the gurney rolled over a ridge in the floor, moving the patient. She felt her hand shift inside the cavity, and the intense ringing in her ears amplified as everyone went silent, eyes glued to her hand, praying that it didn't trigger the explosion.

After thirty seconds of _not dying,_ Annabeth breathed a slight sigh of relief, looking at Ethan for further instruction. He just motioned to continue on, taking everything nice and slow, because that was really all they could do, and Annabeth was ready to have a mental breakdown.

The back wheels of the gurney passed over the ridge, but this time they were ready, so her hand didn't shift, and they managed to continue on.

"You had to say you were going to die today," Piper whispered, but it came out in a whimper.

Annabeth smirked sadly. "I told you."

And suddenly, they were in the other OR, leaving Annabeth wondering how they got there in nothing more than the blink of an eye. Standing by the head of the gurney in the center of the OR, she could feel the blood rushing through her blood vessels.

All at once, it hit her like a train. It was now or never. It had to come to an end at some point, and that point was now, as she fought every instinct to collapse onto a heap on the floor.

Someone was talking around her, but the voice didn't register in her mind. She was on another planet where nothing existed except her and that bomb. Only when they called her name again did she understand.

"Are you ready?" Jason asked lightly while holding his hands above the sterile field. It kind of bothered Annabeth, knowing that once the bomb out, they were still going to try and save the patient's life, even after he had endangered everyone else's.

Annabeth took a deep breath. "Yeah."

"We're going to begin then," he told her calmly, taking a step closer. "Do you remember what to do?"

She wished she didn't.

"I do," she whispered.

"When I tell you to go, you're going to gently wrap your fingers around the nose," Jason reiterated. "We're going to begin by largening the incision. Once we do that, he's going to start bleeding, so you'll remove it immediately, but you have to remember to keep it—"

"—Level. I know." Annabeth blew air from her lips. "I know."

"No quick movements," Ethan added, prompting her to roll her eyes. "Be smooth and languid."

" _I know,_ " she stressed. "Now do you have anything _helpful_ to say?"

Ethan shut his mouth with a snap and Annabeth went back to her headspace, buzzing with adrenaline that was about to increase tenfold.

After a moment of silence, Jason pursed his lips, giving her a glance resembling sympathy, something she had seen too much of today. "You need to be ready. Are you?"

There was no turning back.

Death was so close she could smell it. A sixth sense. Death was standing in the room, breathing over her shoulder and there was nothing she could do. From the beginning of the day, she knew time was laced with death, but now, it was locked into place and there was no key.

"I guess so." Annabeth held her breath. "I guess I don't really have a choice, do I?"

Jason didn't say anything else. His head bowed down to the patient, and lifting his scalpel, he began to widen the incision, and, simultaneously, invite death in with open arms.

* * *

Piper had never been so desperate to _not_ cry in her entire life. Her best friend in the entire world was a few ORs over, a bomb literally resting in her fingers, and she couldn't do anything about it. She kept getting kicked out, and they just didn't get that she didn't care if she got hurt— she just wanted to be with her friend.

For a while, she just wandered in the hall, pacing back and forth, before deciding to try and do something useful. Somehow, she found herself back with Percy, glaring at him and wanting to shove a scalpel in his brain, only a teeny bit unwarranted. He didn't make everything fall to pieces but he sure as hell still made Piper angry just by looking at him and his stupid face.

Piper sniffled, scrunching her nose as she glared at the open brain in front of her (not Percy's, unfortunately). It was a good thing Percy wasn't letting her assist in operating because in her current state, she would probably accidently take out the pituitary gland.

"You need to get it together, McLean," Percy warned lowly, barely giving her a glance from above the magnifying lenses on his face. "I get that there is a patient next door, but—"

"I don't think you do," she muttered before she could stop herself. Her leg was bouncing up and down on the ground, and she really felt the need to take a Xanax or two.

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing."

"That wasn't nothing," he pointed out, pausing talking to pick up another instrument. "It's scary, but the bomb squad has it handled. The paramedic is in good hands."

Fury raged inside of Piper because, _no,_ he didn't understand a thing. He was acting like he had it all together, but if he knew who it really was holding the bomb, he would fall apart.

A part of her wanted to tell him, just to see him burn.

In any other situation, she might have, but right now, she couldn't. There were other people involved and she couldn't endanger them just because she wanted to see Percy hurt just as bad as he had hurt Annabeth.

"So the weather's pretty nice, huh?" Piper said, looking around the room as though there was a window in a useless attempt to distract herself from what was going on just next door.

Percy clicked his tongue. "You know how people like to dumb things down by saying that it's not brain surgery?"

"Yeah."

"Well, this _is_ brain surgery, so let's not have casual conversation about the weather."

Piper crossed her arms, imagining the sweet sense of relief that would arise if she could just get her hands on that scalpel and shank him with it. Percy didn't seem to notice.

"Did you get any updates on the paramedic?" Percy continued on, blatantly unaware of how hypocritical he was being given that he had basically just told Piper to shut up two seconds ago. "Because she must be a complete mess, don't you think?"

"I think… she's more than fine," she answered bitterly, biting her tongue.

"More than fine? That poor thing is probably terrified."

"Stop acting like she's a damsel in distress," Piper snapped. "She got herself into that situation."

"She made a _mistake._ "

"A _mistake_ that could kill everyone in this hospital."

Percy clicked his tongue. "If we punished people for their mistakes, you wouldn't be here. None of the interns would be here, and we would have no doctors. People make mistakes."

"Yeah, well, her mistake might have just ended Annabeth's life."

Percy fell silent and it took Piper way too many seconds of nervous jittering to realize what she had just said to her attending.

Oops.

"What do you mean _ended Annabeth's life?_ "

"Nothing."

" _McLean_."

"It's not important."

"It was important enough for you to say it while I'm in the middle of a brain surgery, so by all means, go ahead."

She really shouldn't, and she knew it. He was an asshole who deserved to cry himself to sleep every night, but he was also an asshole who deserved to cry himself to sleep every night with a knife deep inside someone's brain. The poor patient with a brain tumor didn't deserve to die because of Percy's stupidity.

On the other hand, she already brought it up and he wasn't going to let it go now.

Fuck it, right?

Piper gave him a smile, dripping with apathy. If he wanted to know, then so be it. She was done cushioning his feelings. "The girl with the bomb? It's Annabeth."

A sick sense of satisfaction filled her as his face slowly fell and morphed into concern. His world came crumbling around him and Piper had the pleasure of watching it happen. It was a horrendous thought, but she couldn't help but see this as vengeance because maybe now he would know how it feels to lose the person you loved.

* * *

"Alright, Annabeth," Ethan said, watching the blood start filling the body cavity as the incision was spread a few more inches. "Wrap your hand around and start to pull it out slowly."

The ringing in her ears was deafening. She started to move her fingers to oblige, knowing that it was going to happen sooner or later, but she stopped as something dawned on her. She wasn't done. Not yet.

"Leo and Silena," Annabeth rushed, looking at Jason. "They shouldn't have to move out of the house. Make sure they get to stay there."

" _No,"_ Ethan insisted, knowing what she was doing. "Don't give up yet. You are going to make it out of here."

"And Piper— tell her that I love her. She's my person."

"Annabeth—"

If this was really her final moments living on a world so cruel, there was one more thing she needed.

She loved Percy.

She could never be with him. Not anymore. But still, she couldn't die knowing he thought she hated him. At one point she did, but she knows now that she hated that she had to let him go. She never hated _him._

"Tell Percy I forgive him," she breathed, every nerve in her body on overdrive. "I forgive him for choosing her. She was his wife, and he loved her at one point, and he was obligated to give her a chance."

"Tell him yourself," Ethan demanded.

"He deserves to know," Annabeth stated firmly, looking around the table at the two people who barely knew her yet still stayed by her side. "He needs to know."

"And he will because you will tell him yourself."

Annabeth sobbed, shaking her head pleadingly. A sense of urgency filled her. "You need to tell him. You need to go— both of you. I won't survive this, but you can and should, so please, go find him and tell him."

"Annabeth," Ethan said. "Look at me."

She stayed with her eyes down, breathing choppy and heavy.

"Look at me," he repeated with more determination.

Her eyes slowly dragged to his, but she couldn't see through the burning tears lining her vision.

"I know you're scared. I know I'm just the stranger who has been telling you what to do all day, but I need you to trust me. I will get you out of this, but you need to do exactly what I say, so you do whatever it is you need to. Pretend I'm someone you love and trust— that I'm the guy grounding you to reality and let me lead you through this."

"I'm scared." Her voice was as small as she felt.

"I know, but you're alive. I _promise_ I will get you out of this, okay?"

She shook her head and swallowed hard. There was only one thing left to do anymore. Time was linear and it never stopped moving, meaning that she had no choice anymore except resume her grasp around the bomb and pray.

She took his advice, imagining that there were only two people in that room. She pretended that it was Percy standing across from her, telling her that it would be okay. It was Percy that she had to do this for, to protect him.

If she couldn't do this for herself, then she would do it for him.

_It would be over in a second._

So she began, pulling the device out slowly, inch by inch. It was agonizing, watching as the blood poured around her hand, waiting for the sharp impact of the blast.

She closed her eyes, doing everything in her power to keep it level, bringing it past the skin and into the open air, unable to hear or feel or be.

_Only a second._

The tears were falling faster now, and she couldn't breathe. As she brought the bomb to Ethan's hand, still suffocating surrounded by air, she thought knew what was going to happen. The same thing she's thought all day.

When she set it into Ethan's hand, it felt incomplete as he looked at her earnestly.

"You did good."

And then she was forced to watch as he stepped away from the table, leaving her safe and in one piece, but with dread still coursing her veins. It was like slow motion, watching him take step after step out of the room.

She had been so sure.

Annabeth was supposed to die, but she didn't.

It was still there in the room, though. Death was still breathing down her neck, sending chills through her entire body, and something was _wrong._

Ethan disappeared out of sight, and she blinked. The moment was over, but it wasn't. She was missing something right in front of her.

Annabeth didn't know she was moving until she already was halfway out the door, ignoring Jason's calls behind her. She was in a trance, everything moving agonizingly slow, and so when suddenly felt the spark of electricity through the air, there was nothing she could do except watch.

The bomb at last detonated with a deafening explosion, and the only thing she saw before she was sent flying backwards against the wall, slamming her head against the cement wall, was Ethan being blown to pieces.

As she tried to focus through the pain spreading from the base of her skull and the blood dripping from the deep cuts and bruises, she saw the spot where he had been standing just seconds before. There wasn't even a remote outline of him anymore. He was gone.

There was fire everywhere, burning stray papers, and there were bits of debris floating amongst the dust, burning holes into the walls and floor.

Annabeth laid there, unable to move. It could've been for minutes or hours or eternities, but she didn't move. The line between life and death was a fine one, and she wasn't sure which side she was on anymore.

_She should've died._

Only once people appeared over her – people whose names she couldn't remember anymore – did she move. There were only a few people, kneeling next to her crumpled form on the floor, and they tried to get her to communicate, seeing if she was okay, but she was too busy staring at the spot where Ethan's life had ended.

The spot where hers should've ended.

The spot where she wished it would've.

* * *

People should really just say the things they mean.

From where Piper stood against the wall, she watched as people embraced each other, relieved that they had made it through the explosion. It was disgusting, knowing that they hadn't even been in danger, yet they were the most relieved.

Piper didn't get to hug her best friend because she was the one in real danger, at the front line of the blast. Oh, how it wasn't fair. Life was so fragile she now knew firsthand, and so people should say things while they had the chance.

Percy, for example, should've told Annabeth how much he loved her while he had the chance. Piper knew that those two were ridiculously in love the second he walked into the hospital lobby.

He was still dressed in his navy-blue scrubs, worry written onto his face. He took one quick look around, and Piper knew it was for Annabeth, but when he didn't find her, he was already approaching the chief.

Piper said nothing, watching the scene unfold.

"Where is she?" Percy demanded.

Apollo's back turned so he could face Percy, and he tilted his head as he tried to calm him. "She's okay."

" _Where is she?_ " he asked again.

"She's right there."

Percy turned to look in the direction Apollo gestured, and then a girl was calling his name, but it wasn't Annabeth.

"Percy!" Rachel exclaimed, jumping into his arms and embracing him. Percy seemed disappointed, but he wrapped his arms around her anyways. The people around them smiled, glad the couple had found their way safely back to each other, but Piper knew better.

He wasn't looking for his wife at all. The person he met in college and chose to marry was not the person he wanted to see, and somehow, Piper was the only one who knew it.

He was so painfully in love with Annabeth. Piper doesn't know how neither of them saw it.

"That's not the _she_ he was talking about," Piper whispered to Apollo, pressing off the wall and disappearing to go find the only person she wanted to see right now.

It didn't take long to slowly trace the walls of the hospital before she found Annabeth. The scene in front of her made Piper's heart break.

Annabeth was standing up in the locker room, supported by Leo and Silena on either side of her. She could barely stay upright as her friends helped guide her under the running water, gently rinsing the caked blood away from her skin. The water pooled beneath her, swirling with hints of blood that came from more than one person.

And she couldn't even wince as everything burned. Her skin, her mind, her eyes, her everything. It was destroyed, and she was a mess. She wasn't sure she would ever be anything but a mess anymore.

It was clear that Annabeth wasn't there anymore. She was deep within her own mind, having retreated to the only place she deemed safe anymore. The world was too cruel to be in. Undeserving people died, and bombs got placed inside body cavities, and this wasn't somewhere she wanted to be.

Fate was laughable. She had once heard a story of three old ladies, sitting and knitting. They would knit and knit until they cut the string, and that would be the end of someone's life. She could almost imagine them, holding Annabeth's string taut and ready to cut.

In what world does _fate_ get to be the one to decide how things turn out? Who lives and who dies?

Annabeth had been so sure of her intuition. She had known that she was going to die today, but she didn't. Instead, death had taken the person who promised to lead her through it. Ethan didn't deserve to die, yet he was gone, right before her eyes.

Maybe she had been wrong all along. That feeling inside of her since the moment she woke up could've meant she was going to be surrounded by death, knowing it was her fault. It could've been the fact that she was going to cause someone to lose their life.

Or _maybe_ , she hadn't been wrong at all. Perhaps she had simply cheated death. It was possible she knew that she was going to wish she was dead after having to stand there and know it was her fault.

* * *

By the time she was back home, she had spent too much time thinking to herself. Too much time wishing that she had taken the bomb out of the room so that Ethan could've lived. He was so nice to her and promised her she'd make it through. She just wished it didn't cost his own life.

The knock on the door offered her a tiny semblance of relief, and she stood from the couch to answer it. Every twitch of her muscles ached, and as she moved, the cuts on her body pulled at the tight skin, and it hurt so badly.

It was nothing, though, compared to the pain of seeing Percy stand right in front of her on the other side of the door, tall and perfect, green eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

"I wanted to see if you were okay," he offered in explanation, breaking the tense silence, but he didn't move towards her. She didn't move either. "I heard you were the one with the bomb…"

"Yeah." Annabeth's hand stayed on the doorframe, ready to swing it shut at any given moment. She wanted to just fall into his arms, and that was a dangerous game. She was playing with fire, and she was bound to get burned.

"I guess you're doing alright."

Annabeth stayed silent, pretending not to notice him look her up and down, his eyes lingering on the stitches on her face. His hand twitched, and she knew he wanted to lift his fingers to caress her face softly like he used to do all those nights ago when there was nothing but them.

"I'm sorry," he said, already retreating back down the front porch. He wouldn't be able to stay in control otherwise. "I shouldn't have come."

She didn't want him to leave, but she didn't know what to say, so she simply called out to him. "Percy."

He stopped for only a moment, looking at her, and when she didn't speak any further, he did it for her.

"Annabeth," he breathed, still keeping the distance between them. He chose to bite first. "I love you so much it hurts."

She still didn't say anything, letting him go on. He was the one who left, and it was his job if he wanted to come back.

"I was worried," he admitted. "I love you."

"I love you too," she said, but she knew it wouldn't make a difference. She could sense from the way he was talking that it wouldn't change anything.

"I'm just glad you're okay."

"Define okay," she managed, glaring at him. It annoyed her how she couldn't control her feelings anymore. They both knew what she meant underneath her words. She wasn't referring to the bomb at all anymore. She was referring to them. "I hardly think we're okay."

"Annabeth—"

"I can't even remember the last time we were happy together."

He stuffed his hands into his pockets, waiting for her to continue.

"You say you love me, but something tells me that you're going to walk away again in a few seconds."

"I do love you, but I have a wife."

"Do you love her as much as you love me?" And she hated the way she sounded, desperate and begging for him to be hers. She never wanted to be the person to say _choose me._

His silence was enough answer for her. He didn't want to admit that he did, but he was too afraid to leave.

"You don't have to be with her."

"I owe it to her to try."

"You owe it to her to be realistic. You're making her think that you two are okay. You're leading her on. Do you seriously think that things will go back to the way they were for you two?"

"I need to try."

"It should really tell you something," Annabeth managed calmly, "when there's a bomb in the hospital where your wife and _dirty mistress_ both work at, and you come to me."

"I'm allowed to be concerned!"

"You know what?" Annabeth raised her hands in defeat. "Do whatever. Just get off my porch and don't come back. Go be with your wife that you're oh-so-desperate to see and leave me alone."

"I am _trying_ here."

"To do what? You tell me that you love me, but you keep going back to the person who cheated on you."

"I cheated on her too."

"Oh, so that's what I am to you?" Annabeth snorted. "Fantastic. Go away."

Percy grabbed her wrist so that when she tried to pull away, she couldn't twist out of his hold. She resisted for a little while longer, refusing to lose without putting up a fight, before she gave up and settled for glaring at him.

"You are a _terrible_ human being!" Annabeth yanked her hand away, wincing slightly as her bones cracked. "You turn left and right, destroying everything I loved without so much as a second glance."

"Is that what you think I'm going? Destroying everything you love?"

"You destroyed us."

Percy rolled his eyes, but he didn't leave. He stayed, listening to what she had to say.

"I was going to forgive you today, you know?" Annabeth laughed at herself. "I was actually about to _die_ and the only thing I could think of was you. I haven't even known you a year and I love you so much that you were _literally_ the only thing on my mind, and all I wanted to say was that I understood why you did what you did."

"Then why are you picking a fight with me?"

"I don't understand why you chose your wife anymore. You're clearly not happy, and neither is she. Your wife is at home wondering where you are and what she did wrong, and you're standing here in front of me, so I really don't get why you're still choosing your wife. You two were over before it started."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"That sounds an awful lot like something someone who knows they're in the wrong would say."

"I give up." Percy nipped at the inside of his cheek. "What do you want me to do? Say it and I will."

"I want you to _leave_ because as long as you're standing here, I won't be able to get over you, and I need to move on. You've had time to choose, and now that time has come to an end, so leave."

"Is that really what you want?"

Annabeth wanted to scream at him. It was the last thing she wanted, but she couldn't live like this. He was her poison, and as long as he was there, she would always pick him.

She doesn't even know how it's come to this. Annabeth was never the girl to beg. She could never put her pride aside long enough to do it, but now she was, and it was ruining her life. She was falling behind in the game of life, and it had to stop.

She loved him. Somewhere along the way, she met him and fell in love, and it was crazy to think that it had happened. But then again, maybe not. Time didn't matter— the only thing that mattered was how she felt, and she felt like she loved him.

It was destroying her.

That was why he had to leave. It hurt because he was _right_ there, but she couldn't let what they once had burn her down anymore.

"Yes," she said, looking him directly in the eyes. "I want you to leave."

Percy nodded once, and he looked like he wanted to say something, but his shoulders fell and then he did as she said, leaving her standing on her front porch under the flickering light. The air around her was chilly on her bare skin and softly blowing her damp curls, but it was an appropriate feeling for the moment where there was an aching void in her chest.

Annabeth watched as he disappeared into the distance, and then she watched some more until she decided to head back inside. As she shut the door behind her, she let herself just _feel_ for the things she lost today.

There had been so many twists and turns, but she was right back where she started again, feeling like she was going to die. She might as well have, and maybe that's what she had been feeling all along.

Ethan had died, and he took a part of Annabeth with him. What she and Percy had died, and that too took a part of Annabeth, leaving her with nothing but crumbling ruins.

Death. It was a funny thing. It took so much more than just life until you were better off not living at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted on fanfiction.net on 07/27/2020

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on fanfiction.net on 02/01/2020


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